Disney is rethinking one of its upcoming live-action projects amid Snow White’s low box office performance.
Development on the live-action adaptation of Tangled has been put on pause, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Gracey was on board to direct the remake with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson writing the script, though “studio insiders” told THR in an article published on Thursday, April 3, that the movie’s future is currently up in the air. (Us Weekly has reached out to Disney reps for comment.)
The news comes as the live-action Snow White continues to underperform at the box office. The Rachel Zegler-led film was made for $270 million, per THR, but has only made $69 million domestically and $145 million worldwide since its March 21 release.
Snow White has been surrounded by controversy for years, with actor Peter Dinklage slamming the film’s representation of dwarfism and the son of the director of the original 1937 film, David Hand, calling the remake “woke” and “insulting.” Zegler, 23, also became a target of racist remarks for her casting as Disney’s OG princess.
Why Are People Mad About ‘Snow White’? The Controversy Explained
To add to the drama, Zegler recently sparked feud rumors with her costar Gal Gadot, who portrays the Evil Queen, though neither have publicly addressed the speculation. The West Side Story star also angered fans of the original animated film for describing Snow White’s prince as a “stalker” in a September 2022 interview with Extra.
“It’s no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White that’s not gonna be saved by the prince, and she’s not gonna be dreaming about true love,” she said in a September 2022 interview with Variety. “She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. And so, it’s just a really incredible story for young people everywhere to see themselves in.”
Back in February, Zegler told Vogue Mexico that she interprets the film’s criticism as “passion” from fans. “What an honor to be a part of something that people feel so passionately about, she explained. “We’re not always going to agree with everyone who surrounds us and all we can do is our best.”
Tangled was set to be one of the latest Disney princess films to get new life on the big screen. Dwayne Johnson will reprise his role as Maui in the upcoming live-action Moana, while newcomer Catherine Laga’aia will follow in Auli’i Cravalho’s footsteps as the titular princess.
While the new Moana is a year away from its premiere, fans can catch the live-action Lilo & Stitch when it hits theaters on Friday, May 23.
Though the live-action Tangled was still in the early development stages, the adaptation already faced controversy of its own when actress Avantika faced racist backlash for being fan-casted as Rapunzel.
The Mean Girls star, 20, addressed the aftermath of the casting rumors in a May 2024 interview with USA Today, stating, “Media literacy is a dying art in the day and age of social media, where you can consume content in short snippets and feel like you know everything without doing even brief research on it. It’s very easy for people to jump to conclusions.”
She added of Zegler and live-action The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey, “To get a taste of what Rachel and Halle were experiencing, on a much smaller scale, definitely did scare me a little, because it must have been so much harder for them.”
