Snow White is Disney’s newest attempt at a live-action remake, taking the story of their 1937 animated classic and translating it into a modern live-action movie. The film is set to be released on March 21, and is one of the last few animated classics that Disney has left to remake into live-action, with only a few more confirmed projects on the way. Snow White has had plenty of conversation surrounding it, but the one point of discussion around the film that always dominates big Hollywood blockbusters is how financially successful they will be.

Snow White has been fraught with controversy since its announcement, making it already one of the more interesting Disney live-action projects to see unfold in real time, from Snow White‘s casting to some of the characters it includes. Despite this, the movie could still absolutely make it big at the box office, but that will very much be determined by how well the film is received by both critics and general audiences, and it will need to make quite a bit of money.

Snow White’s Budget Is Reportedly $240 Million

Disney’s Latest Remake Is One Of Their Most Expensive

According to a report by Variety, Snow White‘s total production budget was $240 million, making it easily one of the most expensive Disney live-action remakes of all time, behind only The Little Mermaid‘s $250 million in 2023 and The Lion King‘s $260 million in 2019. Both of those movies, but The Lion King in particular, went on to be huge successes, grossing $569 million and $1.657 billion respectively, making them some of the bigger successes of Disney’s recent live-action offerings.

Disney likely wanted this movie to sit in a slightly less expensive category than some of the most expensive movies of all time, but the production issues faced by the film have ballooned costs into a much higher number.

While modern film budgets have ballooned in recent years, with a growing number of movies finding their total production budgets reaching around the $300 million mark and some even making it all the way up to $400 million, Snow White‘s $240 million is still quite a hefty price tag. Disney likely wanted this movie to sit in a slightly less expensive category than some of the most expensive movies of all time, but the production issues faced by the film have ballooned costs into a much higher number.

Snow White’s Opening Weekend Box Office Projections

The Film Isn’t Set To Have A Huge Opening

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Snow White is set to earn $53 million over the course of its opening weekend at the domestic box office, with a total range of anywhere between $48 and $58 million. While this isn’t awful, it also isn’t an extremely positive situation, especially considering that Snow White‘s box office projections were significantly higher not too long ago. Of course, projections are simply predictions made by professionals, and films will very often do much better or worse than initially predicted.

Mufasa: The Lion King, Disney’s previous “live-action” project, opened with $35 million domestically.

These numbers do make sense for this film, and unfortunately, the low numbers could very well be a sign that Snow White is going to struggle quite a bit. Despite the fact that the original animated film could be seen as one of the main reasons that the company even exists today, Snow White isn’t as iconic for modern-day audiences as something like The Lion King. It is certainly a property that people know about, but whether audiences will run out to see it in theaters is still very much up in the air.

Snow White Likely Needs To Make Over $500 Million To Be A Box Office Success

Snow White Needs To Make A Lot Of Money To Break Even

Snow White‘s reported production budget was $240 million, but film studios tend to do their best to obfuscate the actual costs of their movies so that the numbers seem better for them and their shareholders. In most cases, in order for a film to break even, it has to make double its reported budget, which accounts Snow White‘s marketing and distribution costs, meaning that the remake would need to earn somewhere around the $500 million mark in order to be considered a box office success.

Disney Live Action Remake
Worldwide Box Office

The Little Mermaid
$569.6 million

Mulan
$69.8 million

The Lion King
$1.657 billion

Aladdin
$1.050 billion

Dumbo
$353 million

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While this isn’t an impossible number to hit, Snow White‘s projections paint a pretty dire picture of Snow White‘s box office success. Disney did find a sleeper hit with Mufasa: The Lion King, which started slowly and grew into a big success, so even if the film opens poorly, it could definitely bounce back. It is also worth noting that the box office number isn’t the only metric of success, and Disney could make money off the movie in plenty of other ways, meaning that Snow White definitely isn’t down and out yet.