What’s up, Doc? While there’s a fun Looney Tunes movie in theaters to be happy about, the big story this weekend is Disney’s Snow White seeing a sleepy opening of $42 million. While under normal circumstances that would be nothing get sneezy over, the reported budget of upwards of $200 million is why the Mouse House might be grumpy today. Not helping matters was that marketing was pretty bashful about stepping up to the plate here, allowing “bad press” to dominate the headlines in a manner that made all involved look quite dopey. THERE! THAT’S ALL SEVEN DWARFS! LET’S MOVE ON!
For the sake of comparison, Snow White opened above the sequels Disney has made to their live-action reimaginings, as well as 2021’s Cruella, which premiered as the box office was still in recovery from COVID. That’s it as far as the good news goes. Virtually every other major live-action remake performed much better than the “fairest of them all” managed, and really I think that comes more from confusion over what was being sold here, rather than fatigue over the genre (ergo, that upcoming Lilo & Stitch is going to do gangbusters in May). What else am I supposed to say here? I’m tired of reading about this movie!
Yes, star Rachel Zegler shouldn’t have badmouthed the very movie she was starring in a reboot of (or at least used better language when doing so), but God, if I have to look at one more “SNOW WOKE WILL END DISNEY!!!” YouTube thumbnail, then I’m the one who’s going to be grumpy. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m grumpy.
The bottom line is Disney more or less let this one underperform, and while I’m not going to say “they wanted it to flop” or anything stupid like that, I do think they’re happy to sweep it under the rug. 2025 is still young and they have a strong year ahead with potential blockbusters like Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four, Zootopia 2, and Avatar 3 all on the way. Who wouldn’t feel better having their big flop over with in March?
Snow White apparently had a messy production (Zegler and co-star Gal Gadot supposedly hated each other almost as much as Snow White and The Wicked Queen did), and it’s not like the mainstream press did this movie any favors, eager to resort to rage-bait headlines. I mean, c’mon, Deadline ran an entirely separate report this week comparing how Snow White did in Red States vs. Blue Ones. Who the fuck does that kind of “journalism” benefit? And I say this as someone who thinks many of the “changes” being made to Snow White sound unnecessary and silly (not including a prince seems like a corporate “we’ve gotta appeal to Gen Z” move), but there has to be some sort of middle ground when we talk about this stuff, right?
I’m sorry, did all of that sound like a rant? I apologize, as I don’t mean for that to be my style here. And hey, if there’s one thing Snow White did pull off, it was at least getting some people in theaters, since the rest of the top ten is a dismal list of films that made $4 million or less (although good on Black Bag for showing some legs). As for The Alito Knights–which sounds like something The Avengers would fight–it is making anything but De Niros with just $3 million in the gangster bank. Ugh. Are we really going to need A Minecraft Movie to be our box office savior when it opens in two weeks?
Anyway, the top ten, via Deadline
1.) Snow White (Dis) 4,200 theaters, Fri $16M, Sat $15.5M Sun $11.5M 3-day $43M/Wk 1
2.) Black Bag (Foc) 2,713 (+8) theaters, Fri $1.26M (-55%) Sat $1.9M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.4M (-42%), Total $14.88M/Wk 2
3.) Captain America: Brave New World (Dis) 2,900 (-350) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-25%) Sat $1.8M Sun $1.2M 3-day $4.1M (-27%), Total $192.1M/Wk 6
4.) Mickey 17 (WB) 2,584 (-1223) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-51%) Sat $1.6M Sun $1.2M 3-day $3.9M (-48%), Total $40.2M/Wk 3
5.) Novocaine (Par) 3,369 (+4) theaters, Fri $1.07M (-73%), Sat $1.5M Sun $1.1M 3-day $3.76M (-57%), Total $15.76M/Wk 2
6.) Alto Knights (WB) 2,651 theaters, Fri $1.1M, Sat $1.2M Sun $785K 3-day $3.1M/Wk 1
7.) Looney Tunes…(Ketchup) 2,703 (-124) Fri $472,5K Sat $801K Sun $560K , 3-day $1.83M (-41%)/Total $6.4M/Wk 2
8.) The Monkey (NEON) 1,452 (-842) theaters, Fri $435K Sat $675K Sun $438K 3-day $1.55M (-38%), Total $37.8M/Wk 5
9.) Dog Man (Uni) 1,766 (-641) theaters, Fri $400K (-42%) Sat $650K Sun $450K 3-day $1.5M (-41%), Total $95.6M/Wk 8
10.) Last Supper (Pinn) Fri $365K Sat $539K Sun $431K, 3-day $1.33M (-52%), Total $5.3M/Wk 2