Rumor: Disney Minimizing Rachel Zegler's Press Appearances To Limit Anti-Woke Backlash For 'Snow White'
A new rumor alleges that The Walt Disney Company is purposely limiting Rachel Zegler’s press appearances in order to limit anti-woke backlash for Snow White.
According to Molly Clayton at The Daily Mail a source informed her, “Disney are already anticipating an anti-woke backlash against Snow White and have reduced the media schedule to just a handful of tightly controlled press events.”
As for why, the source explained, “That is why they have taken the highly unusual step not to host a London premiere for the film and are minimising the amount of press questions that Rachel Zegler gets.”
Of note, the anti-woke backlash has already occurred with hundreds if not thousands and tens of thousands or even more criticized Rachel Zegler as well as The Walt Disney Company for their plans to radically alter the original plot and story of the 1937 animated Snow White film with this live-action adaptation.
Back in 2023, Zegler ecried the original animated film telling Extra TV, “The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”
When being asked bout the Prince, she said, “We have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because like we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude.”
She continued, “It’s one of those things that I think everyone’s going to have their assumptions about what it’s actually going to be, but it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful. And whether or not she finds love along the way is anybody’s guess until 2024. All of Andrew’s scenes could get. Who knows? It’s Hollywood, baby!”
“It’s an inner journey that she goes on to find her true self. And she meets a lot of people along the way that make the journey really incredible,” she concluded.
She also told Variety, “I just mean it’s no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White–”
Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot, who is playing the Evil Queen, then asserted, “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince.”
Zegler concurred, “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.”
“She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be. The leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, brave, and true. And so it’s just a really incredible story for, I think, young people everywhere to see themselves in,” she concluded.
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Zegler also shared to Entertainment Weekly, “The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago and therefore it’s extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world. And so when we came to reimagining the actual role of Snow White it became about the fairest of them all meaning who is the most just. And who can become a fantastic leader.”
“And the reality is, you know, Snow White has to learn a lot of lessons about coming into her own power before she can come into power over a kingdom,” Zegler shared.
Gadot also said, “Also the fact that she’s not going to be saved by The Prince and she’s the proactive one and she’s the one who set the terms is what makes it so relevant to where we are today.”
That backlash has seemingly affected the expected box office grosses for the film. Box office analyst Shawn Robbins at Box Office Theory notes that Snow White’s domestic opening weekend box office is expected to gross between $52 million and $71 million with a pinpoint prediction of $56 million. As for its total domestic gross, he revealed it is tracking between $130 million and $209 million with a pinpoint of just $155 million.
For comparison, the last live-action adaptation, The Little Mermaid had an opening weekend of $95.5 million and it went on to gross a total of $298.1 million domestically. The film earned another $271.4 million internationally for a global gross of $569.6 million.
Given the poor box office grosses, reducing the amount of media and press opportunities for Rachel Zegler as well as the entire film might not just be to reduce chances of Zegler answering questions, but also keeps costs down, which have reportedly exploded.
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In fact, Caroline Reid at Forbes back in September 2023 that Disney had already spent $209.3 million on the film as of July 2022. A little over a year later Reid reported that the budget had ballooned to $269.4 million albeit, Disney received a $55.5 million reimbursement bringing its net spend to $213.9 million. However, given the film still had to go through post-production as well as rumors of other reshoots and fixes, it’s rumored the budget bulged to over half a billion.
Scooper WDW Pro claimed, “We know that this film had a budget that was somewhere around $300 million. They have overshot that significantly according to my source and this film is now heading towards for The Force Awakens and The Rise of Palpatine — That’s what I’m going to call it — kind of budget.”
“We’re nearing the half billion dollar mark according to the source,” he shared.
What do you make of this rumor?