Snow White faces major embarrassment as new Rachel Zegler movie flops at theaters

The woke Rachel Zegler-led remake of Snow White has reached a humiliating new low after failing to ignite at the box office.

The live-action remake of the 1937 Disney cartoon classic has achieved a new, unflattering distinction – it now holds the record for the lowest IMDb rating of all time, standing at a mere 1.6 out of 10 after receiving over 270 reviews.

IMDb ratings are calculated by aggregating ratings submitted by users on a scale ranging from 1 to 10. The scores are then consolidated using a weighted average to determine the final rating for each specific title.

The current bottom five movies on the IMDb rating list are as follows: “Disaster Movie” (2008) with a rating of 1.9 based on 96,000 reviews, “Manos: The Hands Of Fate” (1966) with a rating of 1.7 from 38,000 reviews, “Birdemic: Shock And Terror” (2010) with a score of 1.7 from 26,000 reviews, “Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2” (2004) with a rating of 1.5 from 32,000 reviews, and “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas” (2014) with a dismal rating of 1.3 from 17,000 reviews.

This comes amid news that Snow White had suffered a steep fall at the weekend box office while the Jason Statham-led action movie A Working Man clinched the top spot with $15.2 million as it made it’s big screen debut. 

The controversial Disney film grossed just $14.2M at the domestic box office – a 66.4% decline from it’s previous weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. 

Last week the film – which had a budget of $250 million – hit the number one spot, but with a disappointing $43M domestic gross.

The film, which has faced criticism of being ‘woke’, stars Rachel Zegler as the titular Snow White while Gal Gadot portrays the Evil Queen and has grossed a total of $66,814,583 domestically since it’s release. 

Meanwhile, A Working Man, which was released on March 28 and sees Statham play a construction worker returning to his counter-terrorism ways to find a missing girl, earned $15,215,874.

Coming in third place was The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 1, a TV series based on Jesus’ life that earned $11,492,369 at the box office. Like A Working Man, it hit theatres on March 28.

Reddit threads, Disney forums, and entertainment newsfeeds have since been ablaze with scathing commentary, with one user encapsulating the sentiment: ‘A perfect storm of bad ideas gets exactly what it deserves.’

The perfect storm appears to have begun in 2021 with Zegler’s casting. 

While Disney heralded the choice of a Colombian-Polish American actress to play the titular heroine of a German fairy tale as progressive, others declared it to be another instance of Hollywood’s ‘woke’ agenda. 

The backlash intensified when Zegler, in a since-deleted tweet, wrote: ‘yes i am snow white no i am not bleaching my skin for the role.’

Zegler didn’t merely star in the film but also criticized its 1937 animated predecessor, dismissing its themes of true love and Prince Charming as ‘weird’ and outdated.

‘She’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love,’ Zegler declared in an interview.

She described Charming as ‘literally a stalker’ and tweeted days after the movie’s official trailer was released in August 2024. 

The film’s marketing was abruptly subdued and there were no red carpet interviews at its Hollywood premiere, limited press invitations at its European debut in a remote Segovia castle, with Zegler and co-star Gal Gadot notably absent from press junkets. 

Zegler’s stance is only part of a wider crisis for Snow White. 

The film’s title conspicuously drops any reference to the Seven Dwarfs and for good reason.

Disney promised a ‘different approach’ and in the final film, the dwarfs are reimagined as CGI-created magical gnomes and not portrayed by actors with dwarfism.  

Complicating matters further, Zegler has showed her unwavering support for Palestine amid the assault on Gaza, signing off social media posts with ‘Free Palestine’.

Meanwhile, Gadot is an avid supporter of Israel and even served in the IDF. 

Snow White reportedly cost over $200 million to produce, according to Forbes. 

Now, in what appears to be a pivot toward safer creative ground, West Side Story breakout Zegler is revisiting her musical roots with a new single: a cover of Who I’d Be from Shrek the Musical.

The song is featured on MCC Theater’s Studio Sessions album, which includes performances from other musical stars like Jonathan Groff and Ben Platt.

Speaking of Ben, his brother Jonah Platt—son of film producer Marc Platt—launched an explosive tirade against Zegler on Wednesday. 

The 38-year-old, who is Marc’s eldest child, took to Instagram in a now-deleted post to brand Zegler as ‘immature’ and insinuate she has ‘narcissistic’ tendencies.

In the wake of an article published by Variety on Tuesday, which stated that Marc had flown to New York to speak to the actress about her controversial social media posts, one fan left a comment on Jonah’s Instagram.

It read: ‘Your dad flew to NYC to reprimand a young actress?’ 

‘Any words on this? Cuz that’s creepy as hell and uncalled for. People have the right to free speech no? Shame on your father.’

Jonah shot back with an angry rant which began: ‘You really want to do this?’

‘Yeah, my dad, the producer of the enormous piece of Disney IP with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, had to leave his family to fly across the country to reprimand his 20-year-old employee for dragging her personal politics into the middle of promoting the movie for which she signed a multi-million dollar contract to get paid and do publicly for.’ 

The host of the Being Jewish Podcast continued, saying her actions ‘clearly’ hurt the film’s box office. 

‘Free speech does not mean you’re allowed to say whatever you want in your private employment without repercussions,’ he continued.

‘Tens of thousands of people worked on that film and she hijacked the conversation for her own immature desires at the risk of the colleagues and crew and blue collar workers who depend on that movie to be successful.’

‘Narcissism is not something to be coddled or encouraged,’ Jonah concluded his explosive rant.

Jonah has since been slammed for his response online by many users who then commented on the heated exchange.

‘”Had to leave his family” is a crazy thing to say about a 67-year-old billionaire with adult children,’ one user wrote.

‘Momma Platt holding 38-year-old Jonah and 31-year-old Ben in her arms: “You’re going to see HER again aren’t you, while I’m here raising our babies,”‘ joked another.

‘Jonah Platt is damn near 40 and popping veins over a girl born in 2001 in Instagram comments…’ said another.

Someone else wrote: ‘Jonah Platt has no idea how films work. Box office has no effect on “blue collar workers” who worked on this film. They were already paid!’

Zegler has sparked backlash with a series of controversial tweets in recent months.

In August, she took to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post that had initially thanked fans for their support over Snow White.

She wrote: ‘I love you all so much! Thank you for the love and for 120m views on our trailer in just 24 hours! What a whirlwind. I am in the thick of rehearsals for Romeo + Juliet so I’m gonna get outta here. Bye for now.’ 

But, just one minute later, she showed her support for Palestine amid the war in Gaza in the same thread, adding: ‘And always remember, free Palestine.’

The Variety article detailed how, in light of this, an executive raised the studio’s concerns about the post with Zegler’s team, and Marc, the film’s producer, flew to New York to speak with the actress, who refused to take the post down.

He also suggested she work with a social media expert after she also posted ‘F**k Donald Trump’ and ‘May Trump supporters… never know peace’ following the 2024 presidential election. 

The New York Times reported last week that Platt had to remind her how much was at stake with the movie and her career before asking her to ‘post heedfully.’

One insider told Variety: ‘She didn’t understand the repercussions of her actions as far as what that meant for the film, for Gal, for anyone.’ 

The film was also plagued with other controversies outside of Zegler’s comments, amid accusations of a ‘woke’ clean-up job to remove dated cultural references and stereotypes.

Dwarf actors including Peter Dinklage and Jason Acuna – better known as ‘Wee Man’ in MTV prank series Jackass – criticized the decision not to hire actors with dwarfism to play Doc, Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Happy and Sleepy.

However, Disney executives will be wincing at the film’s worldwide box office weekend takings – the most important figures for any new film, at the point of maximum audience interest.

While it topped the charts, the film took $87 million worldwide against a budget of $270 million – including reshoots, but excluding marketing – with top brass at Disney now evaluating what went wrong. The film is also being review-bombed on IMDb.