Disney's SNOW WHITE Stumbles at the Box Office as Hollywood’s Box Office Blues Continue
As we expected, Disney’s latest trip into the live-action fairy tale world with Snow White, didn’t exactly have the happy box office beginning the studios was hoping for.
The reimagining of Walt Disney’s 1937 animated classic, made a global debut of $87.3 million, which falls short of the $100 million mark Disney was thought it would hit. I’m not sure why they actually thought it would have a $100 million opening, but they did.
To put it in perspective, the film cost over $250 million to produce before marketing. That kind of price tag needs serious legs at the global box office to avoid being a financial headache. For Disney, best case scenario is that Snow White ends up more like Mufasa: The Lion King, which made $716 million worldwide than 2019’s Dumbo, which made $353 million, both of which also had rocky openings.
Whether it ultimately finds its footing in the coming weeks has yet to be seen, but with bad word of mouth spreading, that’s probably not going to happen. But as it stands, Disney execs may be identifying more with Grumpy right now.
Disney isn’t the only studio feeling the burn. Warner Bros. didn’t fare much better this weekend with The Alto Knights, Robert De Niro’s new mob flick, pulling in a dismal $5 million worldwide. It’s now the second box office stumble in a row for the studio, following the sci-fi epic Mickey 17, which, despite crossing $100 million globally is still on track to lose $75 to $80 million.
With a reported budget of $118 million, Mickey 17 needs to rake in somewhere between $275 million and $300 million just to break even.
Add to that the lukewarm performance of Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World, and the 2025 box office so far is painting a pretty bleak picture.
Studios are now looking ahead, hoping that upcoming titles like The Minecraft Movie and Marvel’s Thunderbolts* will bring some much-needed momentum.