'Snow White' star suggests desire to ensure Disney's costly remake is a box-office bomb
Walt Disney Studios confidently released a trailer for its live-action "Snow White" remake over the weekend, only to be derailed once again by its woke leading lady, Rachel Zegler.
Zegler, the actress who plays the titular Snow White and starred in the failed relaunch of "The Hunger Games" franchise last year, took to X this week to express gratitude for those watched the new trailer for Walt Disney Studios' next potential tax write-off.
At the time of publication, the trailer on YouTube had over 6.3 million views, 65,277 likes, and 478,811 dislikes.
"I love you all so much! thank you for the love and for 120m views on our trailer in just 24 hours!" wrote Zegler. "What a whirlwind. i am in the thick of rehearsals for romeo + juliet so I'm gonna get outta here. bye for now."
Zegler, who stars in the film opposite Israeli actress Gal Gadot, could not resist the temptation to issue one more tweet, writing, "And always remember, free palestine."
'People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it's like, yeah, it is — because it needed that.'
While the Hispanic actress appears to have been taking her own advice to actively advocate "for a ceasefire, for a free palestine, for no more lives lost" ahead of pro-Hamas protesters' return to school, the Times of Israel highlighted that Gadot was simultaneously facing an onslaught of criticism online by anti-Semites over her ties to Israel.
Zegler's tweet was immediately seized upon by critics, not only as a dig at her colleague but as further evidence both of Disney's ideological capture and its one-way tolerance for employees' expressions of political views online.
While Zegler's tweet is likely to create a headache for Disney, it is far from the only scandal plaguing the "Snow White" remake.
Early in development, the notion that Disney might provide dwarf actors with gainful employment and screen time in a global blockbuster infuriated actor Peter Dinklage, who is himself a dwarf, as well as other activists.
Blaze News previously reported that Dinklage condemned Disney over its "f**ing backwards" plan to remake the film, stating:
I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White — but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you're doing there. It makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way, but then you're still making that f***ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together?
Following Dinklage's inaccurate remarks — the dwarfs lived in a idyllic cottage together as opposed to a cave — a Disney spokesman revealed in 2022, "To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community."
Last year, photographs taken on set revealed that the seven "magical characters" who replaced the dwarfs were men and women of various races, all of an average height except for one actor, who looked the part.
This move generated controversy all its own, prompting the company ultimately to digitally replace the seven with the computer-generated dwarfs seen in the trailer — a costly and time-consuming endeavor.
That Park Place reported that Disney's efforts to spare "Snow White" from the fate of its other box-office bombs required extensive reshoots, which one anonymous source indicated costed more than $30 million to execute.
Disney had on set not only a dwarf problem but a Zegler problem.
Zegler, who some critics suggested was an odd casting choice to play the "fairest of them all," stressed from the start that the remake would be politically correct, telling Vanity Fair in October 2022, "People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it's like, yeah, it is — because it needed that. It's an 85-year-old cartoon, and our version is a refreshing story about a young woman who has a function beyond 'Someday My Prince Will Come.'"
In another interview, Zegler emphasized her disdain for the original's straight love story, noting, "We have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we like cast a guy in the movie."
Zegler's repeated characterization of the film as a woke remake drove various critics and potential viewers to swear off watching the film.
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