It seemed almost impossible, even to “Snow White” remake critics like myself, that it might fail to crack $200 million at the box office. Yet if the movie does cross that threshold, it will be by the skin of Quigg’s teeth.
Quigg is apparently a character in the new live-action version. I only know this because I checked IMDB for characters who weren’t in the original, making me one of maybe 12 people who weren’t involved in the production who know there’s a Quigg.
In its fifth weekend on screens, “Snow White” earned about $7 million in ticket sales domestically and internationally, bringing the total box office take to an estimated $194 million. The film cost an estimated $270 million (after tax credits!) plus another $70-$100 million to market and probably needs $625 million, after theaters take their cut, just to break even.
Oof.
While “Snow White” floundered, Disney announced that the live-action remake of “Tangled” was “on hold.” While not officially canceled, the studio has given zero indication when or even if development will resume.
In box office terms, live-action remakes aren’t any different from any other genre. Some do well, some break even, some (like “Snow White”) flop. Creatively, though, each one reveals Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy, just as much as the endless parade of superhero movies (and their diminishing returns, financially and creatively) does.
Worse, live-action remakes are unnecessary. Animation has a timeless, netherworld charm to it that photorealistic CGI animals and dwarves simply can’t.
For all the online chatter, “Snow White” could have done much better, and just a handful of different decisions made early in the movie’s production would have made all the difference.
First, a flick like “Snow White” has no business costing $320 million to produce, even if a $50 million UK tax credit brought Disney’s cost down to $270 million. But a movie musical shouldn’t be a third-of-a-billion-dollars extravaganza, particularly not one aimed at the Disney princess set. The live-action Snow White reboot should have been a $125 million movie.
All Disney had to do was hire some real dwarves instead of those demented CGI escapees from the Uncanny Valley. They could have used practical sets instead of a green-screen-heavy production that star Rachel Zegler, in particular, seemed ill at ease with. Maybe they could have insisted on a script that didn’t go all-in on Woke (reportedly before the rewrites) and socialism for the reshoots.
Finally, Disney could have avoided the bad press by getting back to doing what movie studios used to do for every release: keep the actors tightly scripted during all appearances (now including online) until the picture is on the silver screens. Reportedly, Snow White’s budget-busting reshoots were needed to plug holes blasted out of the script by Zegler’s off-script remarks.
The film might still have sucked, but at least it would have cost a reasonable amount to produce and not had so much bad buzz going for more than a year before its release.
Shoot a kiddie flick that doesn’t suck for $125 million, promote it for another $50 million, then count the profits as “Snow White” soars to a $400 or even $500 million box office.
Or — please hear me out — take the original, spend a few million cleaning up the print and punching up the score for multichannel sound, and rerelease it to audiences hungry for quality family entertainment.
Maybe that sounds crazy, but is it any less crazy than spending close to $400 million on a $200 million flop?
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