The “Snow White” Fallout Keeps On Rolling

A week on and everyone is still talking about the failure of Disney’s live action “Snow White” at the box-office, but the nature of that discourse has become much more interesting than the film itself. Following the usual post-mortem box office on Monday, a feature piece in Variety on Tuesday essentially indicated that the film’s […] The post The “Snow White” Fallout Keeps On Rolling appeared first on Dark Horizons.

Mar 29, 2025 - 05:07

The “Snow White” Fallout Keeps On Rolling

A week on and everyone is still talking about the failure of Disney’s live action “Snow White” at the box-office, but the nature of that discourse has become much more interesting than the film itself.

Following the usual post-mortem box office on Monday, a feature piece in Variety on Tuesday essentially indicated that the film’s star Rachel Zegler and a handful of her social media postings were becoming the scapegoat for the movie’s failure.

Little discussion was given to other factors, from the over-exhausted and often unasked-for Disney live-action remake genre to the bad reviews that painted Zegler as the film’s saving grace, the poor box-office for films based on nearly century-old Disney IP, and the multiple “Snow White” adaptations in the past – most notably the still relatively recent “Snow White and the Huntsman” films.

That was followed a day later by actor Jonah Platt, son of the film’s producer Marc Platt, accusing Zegler on Instagram (via ~~THR) of “dragging her personal politics” into promoting the movie and damaging its box office potential.~~

A subsequent rumor by scooper MyTimeToShineHello, suggesting both Zegler and co-star Gal Gadot were being considered for major roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, drew mixed responses.

But here’s where things get really interesting. While some have been happy to slam Zegler and claim she’s torched her career, there’s a groundswell of support for the young actress who has stood her ground, kept out of the online fray this week, and not backed down on any of her previous postings.

In fact, Vanity Fair reports that attempt by others to implicate Zegler in the film’s failure is apparently having the opposite effect of what it probably intends to do.

Platt’s posting was thoroughly dragged over the coals in the responses and he has since deleted it. The Variety article has been dubbed a ‘hit job’ by journalist Mark Harris, with an open letter signed by 178 journalists at last count strongly condemning the piece. Variety stands by its reporting in a statement issued to Vanity Fair.

Meanwhile, “Scream” actress Melissa Barrera, who was fired from “Scream 7” after allegedly engaging in political discourse on social media, says (via Pedestrian TV) that the whisper campaign against Zegler made her actually look “cool as hell and full of integrity”.

Zegler herself has not engaged with the debate. What she has posted this week has been several slide image carousels on Instagram of photos and videos talking about her great experience making the film, though a few pointed out that these postings initially didn’t include any shots of Gadot.

She also changed her Instagram bio description to read “Golden Globes winner who does hard things”. She and the film have both been trending across social media for much of the week.

Disney itself is facing another issue right now with the Federal Communications Commission officially opening up an investigation into the Walt Disney Company and ABC‘s DEI efforts according to the FCC’s chairman Brendan Carr in a posting on X today. The studio recently walked back some of its DEI programs, but Carr says “significant concerns remain”.

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