The Fairest Flop: What Really Happened with Disney's Snow White (2025)
How Disney's attempt to modernize a myth turned magic into marketing - and lost the audience along the way.
Credit: DISNEY
There’s a certain kind of silence that followed the Disney’s live action Snow White premiere - not awe, not applause… just silence. A silence that says we know this was supposed to be something. And it wasn’t.
A film that began as a reimagining of a beloved classic and ended up a $250 million cautionary tale in what happens when you forget the heart of the story you’re trying to modernize.
Theatres sat empty. The IMDB score bottomed out at 1.6. The people Disney hoped would show up, didn’t. And the ones who might have? Didn’t recognize what they were looking at.
So let’s talk about what really happened. The story beneath the story. The parts PR won’t put in the press release.
The Original Snow White: Simple Doesn’t Mean Shallow
Back in 1937, Disney’s original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a miracle. Not just technically - it was the first animated feature in U.S. history - but emotionally. It didn’t have plot twists or subversive themes. It didn’t need to prove its political awareness. It was just…honest.
Snow White was good. The Queen was cruel. The forest was dangerous. The dwarfs were rough around the edges but warm at the core. And love - naive, unconditional, fairytale love - was enough to break the spell.
It worked because it was earnest, and unapologetically so. It believed in its own magic. And for decades, so did the audience.
Disney’s 2025 Reboot: A Movie That Apologizes for Existing
I see the early concept decks for the live-action version. I sit through the tone meetings. I hear the language “modern, feminist, Gen-Z forward, representation with teeth”. The idea wasn’t to retell Snow White, it was to correct it. Make her tougher, make her independent, kill the romance, soften the dwarfs. And in doing all that, they also removed the story.
The new Snow White doesn’t dream. She doesn’t want anything except to “lead” - but lead what, exactly? She’s reactive, flattened, stripped of curiosity. A character created to avoid criticism - not invite connection. It was less a film and more a lecture in a dress.
The final product wasn’t modern - it was hollow. A film obsessed with not offending, and in doing so, forgot how to move anyone.
The Evil Queen: The Most Wasted Opportunity in the Movie
Here’s the tragedy: they had a built-in villain tailor-made for 2025.
The Evil Queen is a woman consumed by vanity, obsessed with youth, desperate to stay the center of attention as time moves on without her. She should have been terrifyingly relatable. A character clawing at relevance in a world that no longer cares she exists.
And instead? They have us a one-note glamour shot. Gal Gadot looked the part - yes. But where was the bitterness? The unravelling? The sadness beneath the rage? The vulnerability under beauty?
She posed, she postured but she didn’t bleed. The Queen should have been the most real character in the entire film. She ended up being the most forgettable.
Behind the Scenes: The Production That Was Always Torn
The signs were all there. A film rewritten by committee. A lead actress asked to both headline the story and defend it before it even premiered. The dwarfs redesigned out of fear of offense - only to cause new offense in the process.
Executives tried to thread a needle that didn’t exist: Make it new, but nostalgic. Feminist, but classic. Progressive but uncontroversial.
You can’t please everyone - and in trying to, they ended up pleasing no one.
Marketing to Gen Z and Feminists: When You Don’t Understand Either
The campaign was full of buzzwords. They thought Gen Z would rally around an “empowered Snow White” who didn’t want love, didn’t clean, didn’t sing. They thought feminists would celebrate a heroine who didn’t need anyone.
But here’s the thing: Gen Z doesn’t want fake empowerment. They want authenticity. And feminists? They’re tired of of being pandered to. They don’t need a Disney princes to reject femininity to be valid. They just want characters with depth. Characters who make choices. Who feel real.
This Snow White didn’t feel like anyone. She was an algorithm. And the audience felt it.
Empty Theatres, Angry Fans and that 1.6 IMDb Rating
You’ve seen the photos. Empty theatres, silent red carpets and hashtags turned into weapons.
Yes, some of the IMDb score was review bombing. But a lot of it? Was genuine disappointment. Because the people who showed up hoping for magic got a lecture instead. It’s not that people didn’t want a modern Snow White, they just didn’t want a hollow one.
What Could Have Worked - and Still Can
If someone had told the story department to stop looking at TikTok and start reading the original tale, here’s what they might have found.
1. Let Snow White be kind - but let her choose it
Give her rage. Give her hesitation. Let her question why she forgives. Let kindness be her rebellion - not a reflex. Audiences want softness with a spine, not slogans in a dress.
2. Make the Queen a reflection of us
She is not evil, she’s human. Terrified. Tragic. The ghost of every woman who built her worth on a face that’s fading. Give her sharp lines. Monologues that hurt. Let her be beautiful and bitter, powerful and pitiful. The best villains tell the truth we’re afraid to say out loud.
3. Keep the Prince - but reimagine the romance
He doesn’t need to rescue her, he believes in her. He’s not the answer - he’s the mirror. A story about mutual recognition and respect, not submission.
Why the Original Cast Didn’t Work
This wasn't a talent issue. It was a fit issue. A vision issue. A studio making casting decisions based on headlines, not heart. The actors were never allowed to play characters, they were assigned archetypes with no soul, no arc, no myth beneath the makeup.
Rachel Zegler as Snow White
A powerhouse singer. A charismatic actress. But far too modern in tone. Zegler radiates confidence, irony and edge. Snow White requires earnestness. Not weakness - sincerity. A belief in magic, in people, in love. Zegler never disappeared into the role. She stood outside of it.
When your protagonist is publicly mocking the original story, the audience already feels alienated.
She didn't connect with the myth - and that disconnection showed.
Gal Gadot as the Queen
Stunning. Poised. And completely detached. The Queen isn’t about looking beautiful. She’s about fearing the loss of beauty - and the loss of power that comes with it. Gadot played the surface, not the spiral. She didn’t scare you. She didn’t move you She didn’t make you think.
Andrew Burnap as… the love interest?
Brilliant on stage, wasted on screen. He wasn't given an arc, a name or purpose. The prince could have been a mirror, instead he was a formality. You can’t critique a romance trope if you don’t replace it with something emotionally real.
The Recast
Let’s reimagine the story - not with stunt casting or PR strategy, but with performers who could carry the emotional legacy of a modern fairytale.
Snow White: Chloë Grace Moretz
She’s not your cookie-cutter princess and that’s exactly why she works. Chloë can play delicate without being fragile, and resilient without being jaded. There’s something queer and fierce about her presence - like someone who’s being through too much to believe in fairytales, but chooses hope anyway.
Her Snow White wouldn’t be a girl dreaming of a prince. She’s be a woman choosing to believe the world can still be good.
And yes - she has the vocal control and subtlety to sing the story, not just perform it.
Prince Charming: Andrew Burnap
He was already cast in the film - then erased by the edit. A Tony-winning stage actor with actual emotional gravity, turned into a footnote. But if you give him a real Prince role with lines, an arc and a point of view? He would elevate it beyond romance and into resonance.
Burnap has a softness that doesn’t feel weak. He could play a prince who doesn’t sweep in to save, but shows up to understand. A prince who’s afraid of losing faith in people - until he sees her.
And he can sing. Not in the pop-prince way. In the theatre-trained, emotionally-rich way that makes every note feel like a choice.
The Evil Queen: Cate Blanchett
Do I even need to say anything here? Cate Blanchett is the gold standard. She wouldn’t play the Queen as evil. She’d play her as inevitable.
The ghost of every woman society forgets when the glow fades. The beauty icon who aged out of the algorithm- and is willing to destroy the source of her replacement.
Blanchett brings gravitas to fantasy. Pain to power. Dignity to delusion. She would’ve made the Queen haunt us for decades.
Final Frame
This Snow White wasn’t a remake, it was a retreat. A film so afraid of being outdated, it forgot to be timeless. So focused on what it shouldn’t be, it forgot to ask what it could be.
If Disney had trusted the myth, respected the audience and written the characters instead of case studies, we might have had something real. Instead we got something forgettable.