Disney’s remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs isn’t slated to premiere until sometime in 2023, but production is well underway, and photos of the film’s star in costume for the role of the princess who’s the “fairest of them all.”
Photos posted online give fans a first look at actress Rachel Zegler in costume for her role of Snow White in Disney’s upcoming remake of the 1937 classic.
Photos tweeted by More Butter TV on Friday show Rachel Zegler in a dress that features a yellow-gold skirt, blue bodice with red lining underneath and a raised white collar. The combination of blue, red, and yellow, as well as the inclusion of puffy sleeves show a “faithful adaptation of the cherished costume” according to ScreenRant.
Rachel Zegler recently led the cast in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. After it was announced that Zegler, a Latina, had been cast in the role of Snow White, many fans were thrilled, but some took issue with Disney’s casting decision–even going so far as to ponder online whether Zegler would “bleach her skin” for the upcoming role.
Reportedly, Zegler endured these types of comments, responses, and questions in silence until she finally decided to speak out and address them.
“Never in a million years did I imagine that [playing Snow White] would be a possibility for me,” Zegler said in a recent interview on Variety‘s Actors on Actors series. “You don’t normally see Snow Whites that are of Latin descent, even though Snow White is really a big deal in Spanish-speaking countries. You don’t particularly see people who look like me playing roles like that.”
The live-action film adaptation of Disney’s 1937 classic, which was the first-ever full-length animated feature to be made, is directed by The Amazing Spider-Man‘s Marc Webb. The film stars Rachel Zegler, Andrew Burnap, and Gal Gadot. Gadot will play the role of the Evil Queen.
Andrew Burnap will play the role of a completely new male character created for the live-action film, as opposed to playing the role of the Prince, which also did not sit well with some fans.
Disney’s new take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs sometime in 2023.
It seems like Disney’s remake of the iconic film has encountered a “slight” problem.
As reported by Variety, one of the sets for Disney’s Snow White remake, located at Pinewood Studios, has caught on fire.
It seems as though production has hit more than just a “snag” with one of the sets being completely engulfed in flames after a fire broke out. See the video of the huge fire from Dayz_out (@tobyrolph) below:
The stage was under construction when a tree reportedly caught fire, resulting in the huge uncontrollable blaze shown in the video. According to a Disney source, “no filming was underway”. We are not sure how much of a setback this will be for the film’s production and whether or not the set was salvageable in any way.
“A set made up of a lot of wood, and trees etc was currently being built in the Richard Attenborough stage,” an unnamed source told The Sun. “Rumor is a piece of set has caught alight and spread across the rest of the set. Some crew in the studio were shaken but evacuated without injury.”
One witness told the newspaper that “It was just mental. I didn’t see it start but I was told first a tree went up. By the time I got there the flames were massive, going right up to the ceiling. Then bits of the set started falling into flames and the thatched cottage started lighting up.” Fire and Rescue Service confirmed the crazy fire on Tuesday afternoon around 3 p.m., with twelve total appliances and crews coming to the rescue. Thankfully, no one was reportedly hurt by the fire.
Disney has made its pick for the male lead in its upcoming live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1937).
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Andrew Burnap, best known for his Tony-award-winning performance in The Inheritance has won the hearts of those in casting at Disney, but his role in the new film may not be one of winning hearts as in the 1937 version of the film–more on that in a bit.
Burnap will join an already star-studded cast of actors and actresses, including Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen (The Fast and the Furious, Wonder Woman).
The new Snow White film will be a new take on the animated feature that started Disney’s film-making career in 1937. It will be produced by Marc Platt, who is also currently working on the live-action version of Disney’sThe Little Mermaid. Marc Webb is at the helm as director of the new Snow White-inspired flick.
Burnap is set to play a new role. All we know at this time is that his role is the male lead, but it will be a newly created role in the film, instead of the Prince or the Huntsman. We aren’t sure exactly what that new role is yet, but we know that the role will call for Burnap to sing in the film.
And speaking of singing, the new film will be a musical. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are writing the new music for the film. You may recognize their names as they have penned the songs in other successful films like La La Land, The Greatest Showman, and Dear Evan Hansen.
Disney has confirmed the lead role for the upcoming live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be played by Rachel Zegler.
Zegler stars in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming retelling of West Side Story, and is also currently filming a Shazam! movie from DC.
Marc Webb, the director of Amazing Spider-Man, will be directing the latest live-action Disney adaptation. Marc Platt will be producing the project. Production is set to begin in 2022.
1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first Disney animated feature film, and this new adaptation will add to the film’s story with an expanded narrative and new music.
“Rachel’s extraordinary vocal abilities are just the beginning of her gifts. Her strength, intelligence and optimism will become an integral part of rediscovering the joy in this classic Disney fairytale,”
Marc Webb
Webb and other studio executives had been meeting with actors for several months for the role of Snow White. Early footage from West Side Story featuring Zegler blew everyone away and helped push the final casting decision.
By 1934, Walt became unsatisfied by cartoon shorts and thought a full-length film would be more profitable. he studio began the four-year production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. When news leaked out about the project, many in the film industry predicted it would bankrupt the company; industry insiders nicknamed it “Disney’s Folly”.
Disney first got the idea to do a Snow White film when he was 15, while he was working as a newsboy in Kansas City. The budget for the film eventually grew to over $2 million -an astronomical figure for the time. To put this in perspective, Snow White had gone 400% over budget. It actually ended up costing more than the value of the entire Walt Disney studio. And Disney had never made a feature film of any kind before. Also, this was to be the first-ever animated feature film in color.
During this time, Disney animators invented the multiplane camera which allowed drawings on pieces of glass to be set at various distances from the camera, creating an illusion of depth. The glass could be moved to create the impression of a camera passing through the scene.
Snow White premiered in December 1937 to high praise from critics and audiences. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and by May 1939 its total gross of $6.5 million made it the most successful sound film made to that date.
The success of Snow White heralded one of the most productive eras for the studio; the Walt Disney Family Museum calls the following years “the ‘Golden Age of Animation’ ”. With work on Snow White finished, the studio began producing Pinocchio in early 1938 and Fantasia in November of the same year. Both films were released in 1940, and neither performed well at the box office—partly because revenues from Europe had dropped following the start of World War II in 1939. The studio made a loss on both pictures and was deeply in debt by the end of February 1941.
In response to the financial crisis, Disney and his brother Roy started the company’s first public stock offering in 1940, and implemented heavy salary cuts, which caused the animator’s strike in 1941 which lasted 5 weeks. As a result of the strike and the financial state of the company, several animators left the studio.The strike temporarily interrupted the studio’s next production, Dumbo (1941), which Disney produced in a simple and inexpensive manner.
Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Walt Disney met with Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury, and agreed to produce short Donald Duck cartoons to promote war bonds as well as other military films. The military films generated only enough revenue to cover costs, and the feature film Bambi—which had been in production since 1937—underperformed on its release in April 1942, and lost $200,000 at the box office.
Disney’s production of short films decreased in the late 1940s, coinciding with increasing competition in the animation market from Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In 1948, Disney initiated a series of popular live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with Seal Island the first winning the Academy Award.
In early 1950, Disney produced Cinderella, his studio’s first animated feature in eight years. Costing $2.2 million to produce, it earned nearly $8 million in its first year.
Disney was less involved than he had been with previous pictures because of his involvement in his first entirely live-action feature, Treasure Island (1950). Other all-live-action features followed, many of which had patriotic themes.
He continued to produce full-length animated features too, including Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953). From the early to mid-1950s, Disney began to devote less attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, the Nine Old Men, although he was always present at story meetings. Instead, he started concentrating on other ventures.
These films and innovations in movie-making, as well as, a successful business would allow him to continue his dream of entertainment and move into the realm of theme parks.
Stay tuned for the next part of this series looking at the life and career of Walt Disney!
