I’m Not Even Mad, Just Very, Very Tired

The Disney live-action remakes will continue until morale improves. This no longer feels like the beginnings of a troubling trend worth sounding the alarm bells about in the hopes of waking up sleepy mass audiences, or even a cynical business strategy designed to rake in profits by strip-mining classic films. It’s all of those things and more, don’t get me wrong. But the time for anger, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is well and truly over. This morning’s release of the first full-length trailer for “Snow White” (er, make that “Disney’s Snow White,” as the studio insists on titling it) would normally be ripe for hot takes and overanalyzing every frame of new footage. Instead, the only emotion we can summon up is a deep, unrelenting wave of indifference.

We’re just plain tired, folks.

It’s bad enough that the entire production has been marred by a wave of negativity and controversy that has little to do with the quality of the movie itself. Star Rachel Zegler has been targeted by toxic and racist fans since the moment she was first cast as the famous princess. The YouTuber Industrial Complex has had a field day churning out lies and false rumors on a near-daily basis about Disney “canceling” the movie altogether. And, just to put an overripe cherry on top of this unappealing sundae, pandemic-related delays and significant reshoots have already catapulted the budget for “Snow White” into the stratosphere. All of this has gone down before we’ve even come close to approaching the blockbuster’s release date. For those of us who spend way too much time online and have been plugged into all this discourse from the beginning, the only reasonable reaction is profound exhaustion. We’ll still continue covering this film here at /Film because, frankly, it’s simply too big not to. But, speaking only for myself, feel free to consider this as my official waving of the white flag. We’ve finally reached the “acceptance” stage after months of bargaining with myself and it’s been a long time coming.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the most fatigued of them all? Yeah, that would be me and everyone else feeling a shudder up their spine from the mere idea of more animated classics receiving the live-action remake treatment. First they came for “The Lion King” and turned one of the most expressive Disney films into a dull, washed-out National Geographic nature documentary (and are doing the same thing with the upcoming “Mufasa” prequel). Then they set their sights on not just one, but two 21st Century touchstones in “Lilo and Stitch” and “Moana.” Now that “Snow White” is next on the chopping block, well, I can barely even muster the energy and get through this one article to gripe about how I can’t muster the energy anymore.

To be perfectly fair, it’s not like there’s anything all that more controversial about this remake over any other. Despite the vast majority of fans who’ve directed all their ire at “Snow White” in particular, I can’t claim the original animated 1937 movie is somehow untouchable compared to any other of its Disney contemporaries or that the way the Seven Dwarfs are depicted represents the greatest culture war of our time (although I hope we can agree that taking the all-CGI approach like something out of “The Polar Express” was probably a mistake). The trailer doesn’t hint at any canon-breaking additions to the material or tone down the gorgeous visuals and color palette of the original. Even the casting of Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen and reimagining Snow White as Zegler, a singing talent so prolific that Steven Spielberg himself had no regrets casting her in his “West Side Story” remake, makes complete sense. Everything seems perfectly inoffensive, ironically enough.

So why is “Snow White” receiving the lion’s share of the heat?

For better or (almost assuredly) for worse, it appears that “Snow White” has been destined to take all the slings and arrows on behalf of live-action remakes everywhere. A not-insignificant part of that is the usual racism and misogyny that accompanies any major IP these days, of course, as we’ve seen from Marvel titles like “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” all the way down to “Star Wars” projects like “The Acolyte.” Another aspect is the undeniable political conversation taking place alongside the movie, with Zegler drawing the ire of trolls as a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights and an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump. But perhaps there’s another factor at play — one that’s much simpler and more straightforward.

Are audiences just plain tired of this remake trend already? The usual online spaces such as Letterboxd and Film Twitter (no, I’m not calling it Film “X” and you shouldn’t either) say one thing, reinforcing the notion that movie buffs are sick and tired of the lack of imagination on display throughout many of these adaptations. Yet the numbers tell a very different story, since this strategy has proven to be one of Disney’s most reliable cash cows of the last several years. Everything from “The Jungle Book” to “Beauty and the Beast” to spin-offs/prequels like “Cruella” (of all things!) have been ushered into production in recent years and immediately became box office hits. And Disney isn’t uniquely guilty of this, either, considering DreamWorks hardly hesitated to put a live-action spin on “How to Train Your Dragon.” Even considering all the outside noise swirling around right now, there’s very little evidence to suggest that any of this will translate to moviegoers outright rejecting “Snow White.” This could very well be another case of film obsessives landing on one side of the divide, while general audiences comfortably reside on the other.

Basically, what we’re left with, after all that, is that same sense of weariness that we started with. There’s no real end in sight for these movies, and it’s long past time we come to terms with it. All hail our live-action remake overlords? “Snow White” comes to theaters March 21, 2025.