Did Disney’s ‘Snow White’ marketing campaign leave it to the wolves?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, is Snow White not the fairest after all?

When Disney’s latest live-action princess film hit theaters last week, it wasn’t the smash hit that fans might have hoped for. The movie opened to $42 million at the domestic box office and $87 million globally—only making a small dent in the film’s reported $250+ million budget.

Even before the disappointing opening weekend, controversy has surrounded the project almost from the beginning. In 2021, when star Rachel Zegler was cast in the titular role, right-leaning critics decried the choice to cast the Colombian American actress, citing the original story’s description of Snow White as someone with “skin as white as snow” as reason enough to cast a white actress.

Since then, Zegler has also suggested the original 1937 film was outdated, while political differences between Zegler and costar Gal Gadot have fed the rumor mill. Disney’s handling of the seven dwarves, from initial depictions to casting choices to CGI use, has all prompted backlash. All of it made a recipe for potential disaster—and the ingredient list only got longer when looking at third-party data evaluating Disney’s marketing investment around the film.

Poisoned apple?

As Snow White’s release date drew nearer, some fans wondered why the entertainment juggernaut’s marketing efforts seemed more muted than usual.

According to data from iSpot, it was. The measurement firm tracked a significant decrease in estimated investment in media advertising when compared to other recent Disney live-action remakes. Snow White’s estimated national linear TV media value (measured from December 2024 to the film’s release in March 2025) came in at only $6.8 million and 724 million household TV ad impressions, whereas Mufasa: The Lion King, a 2024 Disney live-action project, pulled $22.8 million and 1.74 billion impressions from April 2024 to February 2025.

The lions might have experienced a boost from a Christmastime release date, but spending on Snow White still pales in comparison to The Little Mermaid, which was released in May 2023. The oceanic princess tale, which was embroiled in a similar controversy surrounding Halle Bailey’s casting as Ariel, generated $19.9 million in EMV and 1.8 billion impressions from March to June 2023, per iSpot.

Where Snow White was promoted, there were some limitations. At the LA premiere, reporters were not granted red-carpet access, which the studio said was to create “a more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, which also reported that the reason was to prevent Gadot and Zegler from speaking to the press. And while Gadot attended the usual talk-show circuit to promote the film, Zegler made solo appearances in Spain and Japan, and Disney declined to hold a UK premiere. Disney had not responded to a request for comment at publication time.

There are other factors that could make releases like Snow White a challenging sell to consumers. A survey from MX8 Labs and The Measure taken in February found that 57% of respondents think the studio’s live-action remakes “are just a way to make money,” while 55% agreed that the remakes “are not as good as the originals.”

With that said, Snow White wasn’t completely abandoned to the wolves and hunters, at least when it comes to some brand integrations. Gardening brand Miracle-Gro partnered with the film to put on a floral installation at the LA premiere and carried out a social media campaign to accompany it, and the allergy medication Allegra also leaned on the dwarves Sneezy and Sleepy for a global campaign.

While a source told THR that Disney may have felt it needed to “get this thing over with,” there could still be many weeks left in the movie’s theatrical run—and perhaps time to convince more fans that it’s heigh-ho, heigh-ho, off to the theaters they should go.