Disney's Forgotten 'Snow White' Is Now Officially Buried

The Walt Disney Company’s spring tentpole–Disney’s Snow White (2025)–has officially been buried.

The live-action remake of the 1937 classic animation has been in the news cycle for almost a decade. From its early announcement in 2016 to the casting of Rachel Zegler (West Side Story, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) in 2021 to the heightened discourse that spanned 2022 through 2025, the Snow White adaptation has faced criticism on all fronts.

Initially planned for a March 2024 release, the industry-wide WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes saw the Mouse House push the release into 2025. By then, though, the movie was already the subject of intense scrutiny for its supposed controversial decisions around casting, adapting the dwarf characters, and removing iconic elements from Walt Disney’s original feature film, like the track “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

Disney’s Snow White made its theatrical debut on March 21, 2025, opening to $47 million domestically. This was a far cry from the initial projections of $60-70 million, especially when it didn’t open against any other major IP or tentpole project.

The movie now sits at $147 million globally, making it one of the biggest flops in recent memory. With a budget close to $270 million, the projected loss of the project is approximately $115 million.

Numerous developments have occurred in the wake of Disney’s box office disaster. An article from Variety dissected the House of Mouse’s polarizing project, examining the behavior of its leading star, Rachel Zegler, while Jonah Platt—son of producer Marc Platt—lashed out on social media before deleting his comments.

As for the company itself, the studio has shelved its live-action Tangled remake, supposedly due to the backlash and low box office numbers of Snow White.

Two weeks on, though, and the big, splashy Snow White musical has been buried. By what? Warner Bros.’s own major IP release, A Minecraft Movie (2025).

Led by Jack Black and Jason Momoa and directed by Jared Hess, the Minecraft feature film, adapted from the extremely popular video game, is looking at a $130-$150 million opening weekend.

Following an impressive start at $50 million, including Thursday night previews, the blockbuster is on track to be the biggest opening of 2025 so far, displacing Disney’s other big release, Captain America: Brave New World from Marvel Studios. The Anthony Mackie-led flick opened to an $88 million weekend.

“Warners, just like you started a sensation with Barbie, you did again with A Minecraft Movie,” Deadline reported late Friday night. “We’re getting reports of auditoriums full of middle schoolers hooting, hollering, and shouting out meme lines from the game. Kids are jumping on top of seats and dancing in the aisles when Jack Black breaks out in song. A Minecraft Movie mania is real, and ticket sales keep building up like bricks…”

The success of A Minecraft Movie proves once again that Disney is not leading in marketing and promotion.

The strategy for Snow White was lackluster, with no real premiere events or viral promotional tactics, like the use of social media platforms, for its stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen–although that could be down to the reported rift between the pair due to political differences.

Zegler did, however, up her presence online after the film’s release, including sharing that the movie was the number one film in the world.

A Minecraft Movie, however, was bolstered by a big partnership with McDonald’s, with kids and adults getting involved with their Happy Meal campaign and, just like Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, experiences of viewing the movie have already gone viral on social media platforms like TikTok.

While Disney’s recent animated hits Inside Out 2 (2024) and Moana 2 (2024) broke the billion-dollar barrier and became huge hits, the studio struggles to hold onto its once-unbreakable reputation and box office performance.

With Pixar’s original Elio (2025) dropping this year, it will be interesting to see if the audience shows up or if, as we’ve seen before, wait for its inevitable drop on Disney+. That said, Pixar’s last flick, Elemental (2023), became a sleeper hit after gaining steam at the overseas box office, so anything is possible.

Both Disney’s Snow White and A Minecraft Movie are now playing in theaters.

How do you feel about Disney’s recent box office performance? Will you be heading to the theater to see A Minecraft Movie? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!