Did Geopolitics Poison Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Remake?

Disney’s live-action remake of the 1937 classic Snow White was released in theaters March 21, and several controversies surrounding the film and its actors are being blamed for underwhelming opening weekend box office figures. The movie earned about $43 million domestically and $87.3 million globally. It’s too early to call it a true flop, but the film has a long way to go to pass the steep $270 million production cost. 

So, what exactly poisoned this apple?

It seems that an on-screen rivalry has bled into real life with a rumored feud between Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen and Snow White’s stepmother, and Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White. However, their squabble isn’t about who is the fairest of them all. Rather, Gadot and Zegler seem to be on different sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gadot, an Israeli actress, has been outspoken in her support of Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack. At the Anti-Defamation League’s annual summit, held this year in New York City on March 4, Gadot was being honored. “Never did I imagine that on the streets of the United States, and different cities around the world, we would see people not condemning Hamas but celebrating, justifying and cheering on a massacre of Jews,” Gadot said in her acceptance speech. For her part, Zegler signed the 2023 Artists4Ceasefire letter that petitioned former President Joe Biden to end Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza, and in August 2024 thanked audiences for watching the Snow White trailer in a post on X, adding “and always remember, free Palestine.” Her political activism was not just Palestine-related. After the November presidential election, Zegler took to Instagram saying she hoped President Donald Trump and his supporters “never know peace.”

More recently, Jonah Platt, host of the podcast Being Jewish and the son of Snow White Producer Marc Platt, partially blamed Zegler for the film underperforming in a now-deleted Instagram post. “My dad, the producer of [an] enormous piece of Disney IP with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, had to leave his family to fly across the country to reprimand his 20-year-old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million-dollar contract to get paid and do publicity for,” Platt wrote, according to Variety. “This is called adult responsibility and accountability. And her actions clearly hurt the film’s box office.”

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what will be the biggest Disney live-action flop of them all?

The movie also faced backlash over casting Gadot, a native Israeli who served in the IDF. People left comments on X calling Gadot an “evil Zionist” and “child killer.” One commenter wrote: “Gal Gadot is perfect to be evil queen [because] she’s actually evil for killing children in real life.” Another talked about boycotts of the movie. “Conservatives are boycotting the new Snow White film because they’re mad that a mixed race woman was cast in the lead role,” the comment read, referring to Zegler’s Colombian and Polish ancestry. “The rest of us are boycotting it because of its evil, evil Zionist ‘queen,’ Gal Gadot.” Additionally, a campaign by various organizations across the Arab world to ban Snow White from screening in Arab countries is ongoing, according to The New Arab. In a joint statement, the organizations claim that the actress represents “occupation, violence and a military force that continues to commit atrocities against Palestinians.” After Zegler’s “Free Palestine” post on X, there have been reports that Gadot is receiving an increase in death threats and Disney is currently paying for her heightened security. “[Zegler] didn’t understand the repercussions of her actions as far as what that meant for the film, for Gal, for anyone,” an anonymous source recently told Variety. On March 18, the pro-Israel actress received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The ceremony was disrupted by both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel demonstrators. The former held signs such as “Heroes Fight like Palestinians” and “Snow White Supports Genocide.”

The Snow White live-action remake faced controversy as far back as 2021, when Disney announced their casting choice of Zegler in the title role. The classic film, and the eponymous 1812 Brothers Grimm story it’s based on, described the character as having “skin as white as snow,” but the modern remake moves away from that with the casting of Zegler, who made her big screen debut playing Maria in Steve Spielberg’s 2021 film adaptation of West Side Story. In an October 2022 interview with ExtraTV, Zegler offered a feminist critique of the Snow White story, noting that “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. Weird.” Zegler added that in the new rendition of the story, her character isn’t dreaming of love; she dreams of becoming a leader. Some fans got offended by her remarks, including a TikTok user @CosywithAngie, whose post about Zegler’s comments garnered over 14 million views. “It is not anti-feminist to want to fall in love, to want to get married, to want to stay at home, to be soft, to want to be a homemaker,” she said. “None of these things makes you less valuable as a person or a woman.” Zegler continues to face online hate and trolling with X users going so far as commenting on her back hair. 

In some conservative circles, the film has been coined “woke” Snow White. The Daily Wire released a trailer for an alternative version titled Snow White and the Evil Queen in a 2023 YouTube video. The so-called anti-woke version was never made, and it’s unclear if there was any intention to do so. But the backlash doesn’t end there. Disney was also criticized over its handling of the seven dwarves. Peter Dinklage, an actor who has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, said “you’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that f***ing backward story of seven dwarves living in the cave. What the f*** are you doing, man?” Disney released a statement saying they consulted members of the dwarfism community, but others were upset by the decision to use CGI to create the “magical creatures” (what the dwarves were called in the movie–another great creative decision by Disney) instead of casting actors within the community. 

It’s impossible to know which, if any, of the controversies was the primary reason it had a poor opening or if people suspected it just wasn’t going to be very good. (On Rotten Tomatoes, the film had a rating of 42 percent.) Disney has seen high performing opening weekend numbers for their live action remakes with The Lion King ($191 million), Beauty and the Beast ($174 million) and Alice in Wonderland ($116 million). However, low opening-weekend box office figures are not unheard of. Mufasa: The Lion King opened with only $35.8 million domestically in December 2024 and has grossed $253.8 million domestically to date. In its second weekend, experts anticipate a 53 percent drop in Snow White’s earnings, Deadline reported. Mirror, mirror on the wall, what will be the biggest Disney live-action flop of them all? 

Top image: Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White (left), and Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen (right), (Credit: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0) / Brutallygolden (CC BY-SA 4.0)).