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'Snow White' Opens with Sleepy $43 Million at Box Office

FILE PHOTO: Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US March 15, 2025. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US March 15, 2025. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
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'Snow White' Opens with Sleepy $43 Million at Box Office

FILE PHOTO: Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US March 15, 2025. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Cast member Rachel Zegler attends a premiere for the film "Snow White", in Los Angeles, California, US March 15, 2025. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

The Walt Disney Co.’s live-action, controversy-bedeviled “Snow White” opened in theaters with a sleepy $43 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
With a budget above $250 million, “Snow White” had set out with higher ambitions, particularly since it returns Disney to its very origins. The 1937 original “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was the company’s first animated feature, and paid for its Burbank studio lot.
But this “Snow White” struggled to find anything like a fairy tale ending. The runup to release was plagued by controversies over the film’s handling of the dwarfs, who are rendered in CGI, and backlashes over comments by its star, Rachel Zegler. The PR headaches prompted Disney to pull back on its premiere.
Also working against the film, directed by Marc Webb: poor reviews. Critics were largely not impressed with Disney’s latest live-action remake, with reviews coming in just 43% “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.
There’s been a wide variance between the box-office performance of other “live-action” Disney remakes, but “Snow White” might mark a new nadir. Jon Favreau’s photorealistic “The Lion King” (2019) didn’t have great reviews, either, but grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide. “Snow White” opened worse than “Dumbo” (a $46 million opening in 2019) and well shy of “Cinderella” territory ($67.9 million in 2015).
Overseas, “Snow White” added $44.3 million for a global launch of $87.3 million. But going into the weekend, “Snow White” had been eyeing a worldwide total closer to $100 million – and a few weeks back, expectations were significantly higher.
The result will surely add to questions over Disney’s long-term strategy of mining its vault for live-action remakes. In the pipeline are upcoming new versions of “Moana" and “Tangled." A live-action “Lilo & Stitch” launches in May, The Associated Press reported.
Efforts to modernize “Snow White," though, quickly ran afoul. In 2022, actor Peter Dinklage criticized the remake plans as “backward.” Disney ultimately opted to drop “and the Seven Dwarfs” from the original's title, and animate the dwarfs. Some right-wing commentators targeted “Snow White” and Zegler's casting as an overly “woke” production. Delays and reshoots also ran up costs.
Disney, though, has recently steered a handful of films from modest starts to enviable final hauls. The Barry Jenkins-directed “Mufasa: The Lion King” opened with $35.4 million domestically, but ultimately surpassed $717 million worldwide. “Snow White” will face little direct competition in the coming weeks. Audiences gave it a “B+” CinemaScore.
Warner Bros.’ “Alto Knights,” a period gangster film starring Robert De Niro in both lead roles, was a total misfire. The Barry Levinson-directed film, which cost about $45 million to make, opened with just $3.2 million from 2,651 theaters. The flop of “Alto Knights” followed another misfire for Warner Bros. with Bong Joon Ho’s big-budget sci-fi “Mickey 17.” In three weeks, it’s tallied $40.2 million domestically against a $118 million budget.
“Magazine Dreams,” starring Jonathan Majors as a disturbed aspiring bodybuilder, opened with $700,000 for Briarcliff Entertainment in 815 locations. The film was dropped by Searchlight Pictures after Majors was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment against Grace Jabbari, his ex-girlfriend. Majors avoided jail time but was given a year of probation.
The disappointment-filled weekend added to a rough 2025 so far for Hollywood. The box office is down 6.9% from last year, according to data firm Comscore, and 38.6% from 2019.

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Hollywood Lands a Much-Needed Box Office Hit with ‘A Minecraft Movie’

Jack Black poses for photographers with a model wolf character from the film, upon arrival at the World premiere of "A Minecraft Movie" on Sunday, March 30, 2025, in London. (AP)
Jack Black poses for photographers with a model wolf character from the film, upon arrival at the World premiere of "A Minecraft Movie" on Sunday, March 30, 2025, in London. (AP)
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Hollywood Lands a Much-Needed Box Office Hit with ‘A Minecraft Movie’

Jack Black poses for photographers with a model wolf character from the film, upon arrival at the World premiere of "A Minecraft Movie" on Sunday, March 30, 2025, in London. (AP)
Jack Black poses for photographers with a model wolf character from the film, upon arrival at the World premiere of "A Minecraft Movie" on Sunday, March 30, 2025, in London. (AP)

Hollywood needed “A Minecraft Movie” to be a hit, and it delivered in its opening weekend, significantly narrowing this year's box office deficit.

No one guessed just how big it would be. In its first few days in theaters, the movie earned a staggering $157 million in ticket sales from theaters in the US and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday. Internationally, it’s looking at an additional $144 million for a global debut of $301 million. And with school spring breaks ongoing, “A Minecraft Movie” is just getting started.

“We're just thrilled that audiences are responding and that everyone's going to the theater,” said Pamela Abdy, the co-chair and CEO of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group.

Not only is it the biggest opening of 2025, “A Minecraft Movie” also broke the record for a video game adaptation, a distinction previously held by “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($146 million). Going into the weekend, analysts projected “Minecraft” might hit $80 million. Instead, it nearly doubled that figure.

“You can’t underestimate the value of earnest, entertaining, joyous cinema,” said Michael DeLuca, also co-chair and CEO. “People really want an escape, especially when it involves the whole family.”

Nothing is guaranteed in the movie business, but an offering based on the best-selling video game of all time makes for a good start. It hardly mattered that the block-based game doesn’t exactly have a narrative. Many of its 200 million active monthly players turned out in droves anyway.

DeLuca said it’s one of the “broadest playing movies” they’ve ever seen, meaning it’s working in all sizes of cinemas all over the world.

The PG-rated movie, directed by Jared Hess (“Napoleon Dynamite”), was a co-production of Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. It cost a reported $150 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. Jack Black and Jason Momoa lead the ensemble cast (Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen). Their characters are transported into an imaginative dimension called the Overworld and need to go on a dangerous, and immensely silly, adventure to get home.

“We made the movie for the fans and the fans exceeded our expectations,” DeLuca said.

Critics were largely mixed on “A Minecraft Movie,” but audiences gave it a more promising B+ CinemaScore and 4/5 stars in PostTrak exit polls. Men made up around 62% of the audience, and 64% were under the age of 25. Warner Bros. went big on its release, opening the film in 4,263 locations domestically and 36,000 screens internationally.

“Younger audiences love going to the movie theater, believe it or not,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “This is the perfect small screen to big screen alliance. It became a must-see theatrical event. Awareness was off the charts.”

Video game adaptations have had some pivotal successes in recent years, including “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” the “Sonic” series and “Five Nights at Freddy’s.”

“Video games were once a genre that had very mixed results at the box office, but the code has finally been cracked,” Dergarabedian said.

Second place at this week's box office went to the Jason Statham action pic “A Working Man," which added $7.3 million in its second weekend. Third place was occupied by the second installment in the episodic “The Chosen: Last Supper” series. Part two (made up of episodes three through five) earned $7 million over the weekend. The third and final batch of episodes arrive in theaters on April 11.

“Snow White” slid to fourth place in its third weekend, bringing in $6.1 million. It's now made over $168 million globally.

It’s been a difficult start to 2025 for Hollywood and movie theaters, with disappointments including “Snow White” and “Mickey 17.” But one hit can change the tides significantly, especially with in-theater marketing pushes in full swing for the pivotal summer movie season, which kicks off the first weekend in May.

Before this weekend, the box office was running at a 13% deficit compared with last year. Now the gap is down to 5%.