Snow White's Box Office Isn't The Fairy Tale Ending That Disney Hoped For

Snow White has been surrounded by controversies from the moment it announced Rachel Zegler's casting for the titular role. The live-action adaptation is now showing, but it underperformed at the box office, which isn't really surprising.

via: Movie Web

A new report suggests that despite the loud voices on the internet seemingly pulling Snow White into a cultural war, general audiences didn't seem to care as the movie seemed to perform evenly across the country in Red and Blue-leaning cities. For over four years, most of the discourse about Snow White has not been about the actual movie itself but behind the scenes. While the internet certainly makes this a big deal, one must remember that online discourse does not always translate to the real world.

In a report published by Deadline, box office analytics company EntTelligence revealed that despite a seeming conservative-based backlash to Snow White, the movie overperformed in Red County-based cinemas compared to other films, with 40% ticket sales and 43.5% admissions. The report did indicate that 60% of ticket sales for Snow White and 56.5% of the film's total attendance (3.1 million admissions) came from theaters in Blue counties. However, it is worth remembering that most theaters in the U.S. reside in Blue-county cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This does suggest that audiences across the political spectrum and all over the country turned out to see Snow White as in a much more even distribution than the online discourse would have one believe. Steve Buck, EntTelligence Chief Strategy Officer, told Deadline:

"There was no red theater blockade due to any perceived controversies with Snow White. In fact the opposite, theaters in Red counties performed better than they would normally for a family/animated film of this size and scope."

Despite some people being angry online for casting Rachel Zegler as Snow White, that decision seemingly paid off as the audience for Snow White was 30% Latino/Hispanic moviegoers, behind the 43% caucasian moviegoers. Snow White overperformed in Latino and Hispanic markets like Dallas, San Antonio, and Phoenix. The highest-performing theater for Snow White for its opening weekend was notably a Disney theater: The AMC Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, FL, which is in a Red-state and had a wider draw for moviegoers than any AMC or even the Disney-owned El Capitan theater in Los Angeles, California.

There certainly will be a lot of analysis on Snow White's box office draw, as people will point to the $43 million as a major flop considering films like Cinderella and Maleficent opened above $60 million a decade ago or that movies based on Disney Renaissance films like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid drew in $100 million opening weekends. Even Deadline notes, "that ceiling at the box office can also be attributed to the fact that there’s a lack of demand for older Disney IP," which we also highlighted. Snow White performing on par with Dumbo, another classic Disney movie getting a live-action remake, indicates why Disney sent other live-action remakes of Disney classics like Pinocchio, Peter Pan & Wendy, and Lady and the Tramp to Disney+.

Snow White is underperforming at the box office, considering how much Disney reportedly spent on the movie. Yet it is important to note that despite all the hate aimed at Snow White online, it still managed to draw in more moviegoers than the previous week's top 5 films combined. It is actually the second highest-grossing opening weekend of 2025 so far, behind only Captain America: Brave New World, which also had its fair share of controversies around it. It serves as another reminder that online discourse around a movie doesn't always translate to general audience taste, particularly when it comes to Snow White, since its target demographic is likely too young to be getting into debates about it online. Despite the country being rather divided, maybe the truth is little kids don't have an opinion on the stars of Snow White and just want to see the new Disney princess movie.