INSIDE DISNEY’S CYNICAL, SOUL-SUCKING REMAKE MACHINE:
This week’s Mufasa was directed by Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning maestro of Moonlight, who has been tied up in its production for the last four years. There’s a Hercules coming from Guy Ritchie – Aladdin was also one of his – as well as a photorealistic Bambi, to which at one point Women Talking’s Sarah Polley was attached. (She stepped down in March; the gig’s still up for grabs.) The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey is on Tangled. Hip-hop multi-hyphenate Questlove is tackling The Aristocats. Robin Hood, Moana, Lilo & Stitch: the IP cupboard raid continues apace.
But that could all change – or at least pause sheepishly for a bit – in the light of one impending release. Disney’s Snow White, coming to cinemas in March, will offer a contemporary spin on the studio’s 1937 legacy-making masterpiece. But exactly how contemporary appears to have been the cause of much backstage panic.
Since it was initially filmed in early 2022, three rounds of reshoots have ensued. These were reportedly to revise the dwarf characters completely – the original human actors, of diverse races and statures, have now been replaced by unsettling CG avatars – as well as make the new version of Snow White more likeable, both by toning down her girlboss braggadocio and expanding the more sympathetic childhood flashback scenes. The budget is said to have ballooned to approximately $250 million.
Rachel Zegler, the star of West Side Story, has also proven a controversial choice as lead, partly for her Colombian heritage (a nonwhite Snow White feels deliberately agitational in a way other racially diverse casting picks have not), and partly for her unfortunate tendency to poke fun at the original film during interviews.
On its release, the trick the film has to pull off is the same one as always: recapturing the vibes of the original film while smoothing over its less PC features. (Hence the lack of underage smoking and boozing in Pinocchio and the crow no-show in Dumbo.) But the unique problem presented by Snow White is the solutions are just as problematic as the problems. Is casting no shorter actors more or less progressive than casting seven, albeit in stereotypical roles? Perhaps this is why Disney took so long to revisit Snow White in the first place: it’s certainly why the thing has taken so long to come out.
The question we’re left with isn’t why does Disney keeps remaking their films – it’s because they still pay – but what will happen once they’ve remade them all. There are arguably only seven left in the canon that would make sense as live-action/CG hybrids: The Sword in the Stone, Oliver & Company, Pocahontas, Tarzan, The Princess and the Frog, Frozen and Encanto. (With the
best will in the world, they’re not doing Chicken Little.)
And the likeliest answer can also be found in 1944. They’ll wait a few years, then do it again.
Hopefully future remakes won’t have as many down votes as Snow White currently has: Disney’s Woke ‘Snow White’ Trailer Nears 1.4 Million Downvotes.