Disney's "Snow White" was released, and the numbers are not looking good. Not that anyone thought they would. The film has been an ongoing disaster since day one, with lead actress Rachel Zegler doing the most to destroy any goodwill audiences might have had with it.
To go over it all would take a book, but luckily, RedState's been on it with this major cultural war beachhead, and we've got our articles concerning the event neatly for you here. I suggest taking a look-see at the list in case you need context. I've also done some videos on the subject on my YouTube, and you can watch that playlist here. Actual video review soon to follow.
But it needs to be understood that this film has bombed so badly that it will leave Disney with one of two choices. The "Snow White" film isn't just garbage; it's borderline insulting garbage. It does very little to make anyone mad on a socio-political level. It spent millions of dollars and pushed the film back an entire year to make sure of that, but in its place is a film with politically thick bones, wearing a patch-job exterior to make it seem like it's something completely different.
What you get is a disjointed mess of incomplete storylines and subplots, horrific acting, and, if you're a fan of the original, a complete departure from who and what Snow White the character is. You think you're going in to see a Snow White movie. You're not. Like too much in this world nowadays, it identifies as Snow White, but everything from its biology to its horribly masked exterior shows you it's something else.
As I've stated before, this level of failure happening on so many levels is going to push Disney into some changes. There's no way it doesn't, because the alternative is to continue going down this path and slowly but surely fading into irrelevance. This will be a long road, given Disney's enormity, but it will happen. Moreover, the rest of the industry will have to follow suit.
By that, I mean that Disney will have to depart from the socio-political direction it's invested so heavily in for the past decade or so.
The thing is, I think the "Snow White" movie is proof that they were already trying to do that. Again, millions of dollars and a year-long delay were spent to "fix" the film. In fact, they've been doing this with quite a few films. "Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania" is one of those films, as was "The Marvels." The thing is, "Snow White" put the seal on this age because even with all its "fixes," they still wound up with something that was so unpalatable that even friendly critics couldn't give it a good score. As of this writing, critics have given this film a 44 percent rating.
The expense is too great to keep this going. Not only is it expensive to make the films, it costs quite a bit to rewrite and reshoot. Then there's marketing, which racks up its own price tag. If the film bombs — which this one has royally — then the total lack of hype and goodwill results in other monetary losses. Merchandising and park attractions are effectively thrown out the window, resulting in the subsequent loss of millions more. Moreover, putting actors like Rachel Zegler in subsequent films is nigh out of the question, because their name carries too much baggage. If they were in previous films, those films might even take a hit in various ways, potentially becoming skippable offerings on Disney+.
This isn't sustainable. Something has to change or Disney will face a steep decline, resulting in what would likely be a breaking up of the company to sell to the highest bidder.
In an age where the common man is increasingly capable of creating grand movies and images thanks to revolutionary technologies like video-creative AI, and even the cameras on your phone outpace anything seen even 20 years ago by leaps and bounds, Hollywood has some growing up to do. Competition is everywhere now, and continuing down the path of politicization and ideological preaching will result in disaster.
Disney has to change. It has no choice.
I anticipate some things to truly demonstrate that Disney got that message. The new "Lilo and Stitch" movie looks like it might actually be decent, and if that movie manages to impress, then we'll know Disney is back on track. If not, then the company may very well be doomed.
You're all going to disagree with me, but I don't want Disney to die... not the Disney I knew. I think it's still somewhere in there. This iteration of Disney does need to find itself six feet deep, though.
What Walt created was an American powerhouse of creativity. While it might not have represented it well over the past decade, Disney exemplified American ingenuity and imagination. It was something Americans could point to with pride and say, "This is what we're capable of." That level of cultural power changed the course of global history, influencing other nations in ways that make regime-change wars of Presidents look laughable by comparison.
That Disney is worth fighting for, and I sincerely hope that egregious failure by Disney will help to knock it back on that path. I hope it has that effect for all studios.
