Disney princesses have hurt their pride again. Following last year‘s ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Snow White’, a live-action adaptation of a popular animation, is also receiving harsh reviews. ‘Snow White’ garnered attention as a live-action adaptation of Disney’s first full-length animation, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ from 1937, but the casting of actors of a different race from the original characters, as well as the controversy over the forced story, have intensified the backlash and are leading to a box office failure.

A ‘box office failure’ that falls short of ‘The Little Mermaid’

‘Snow White’ started its run at 2nd place at the box office on the 19th, but its ranking plummeted to 4th place as it was met with harsh reviews immediately after its release. As of the 24th, the 6th day of screening, the accumulated audience was 130,000, which is a shocking figure that is less than one-third of the audience (450,000) of the same period for the box office flop “The Little Mermaid.”

The global atmosphere, including North America, is no different. In its first week of release, it earned $43 million in North American box office revenue and $87 million worldwide, which is a miserable figure considering its production cost of $240 million. American entertainment media Variety reported that “”Snow White“” has become an official box office flop“ and that ”it will be impossible to break even.“

Various ratings are also gloomy. The freshness index of global rating site Rotten Tomatoes stands at 43% (as of the 25th), and the rating on IMDb, the largest database for movies and dramas, is 1.9 out of 10, the lowest score of all Disney live-action films.

O“Unconvincing destruction of the original story”

Even before its release, the film was criticized for ‘excessive PCism’ (political correctness) due to the casting of Latina actress Rachel Ziegler as Snow White, who has ‘snow-white skin’. However, after the film‘s release, there has been greater criticism of the “story that ignores plausibility” rather than the casting. This was due to some settings that destroyed the original work for the sake of ‘modern sensibility’.

In particular, the audience pointed out that the setting in which the queen, who was obsessed with appearance, tries to eliminate Snow White because she is aware of her ‘beautiful inner self’, the romance that follows with the leader of a band of robbers rather than a prince, and the princess’s actions to fight against power together with the people were not portrayed convincingly.

Foreign media also tend to agree with the audience‘s opinion. The British Times sighed, ”A time-honored entertainment company (Disney) is now looking at the original with disgust,“ and the New York Post said, ”A timeless classic that was a groundbreaking achievement has been transformed into a meaningless and awkward live-action film.“ The Independent also harshly criticized the film, saying, ”It’s a film that did the bare minimum, threw in some cute animal CG, and hoped no one would notice,“ and the BBC added its criticism, saying, ”The story is messy and chaotic.“


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.