After making making an incredible film debut in late 2021 playing Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, Rachel Zegler’s Hollywood profile has soared even higher this year thanks to the 2023 movie releases Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which came out in March, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which arrives next month. After that, audiences will see her in arguably her biggest role yet: playing Snow White in Disney’s live-action remake of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But I have bad news for Zegler fans: the upcoming Disney movie has been hit with a big delay.
Disney announced today that it’s moving Snow White from March 22, 2024 to March 21, 2025. In other words, rather than getting to enjoy this flick as one of the earlier offerings on the 2024 movies calendar, We’ll now have to wait Zegler putting her own spin on the first Disney Princess for roughly a year and a half longer. According to THR, this delay was prompted by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, as was the decision to move Pixar’s Elio from March 1, 2024 to June 13, 2025.
The actors strike has been going on since July 14, and among the effects of its continuation is actors not being able to promote their upcoming projects unless special agreements are worked out with the union. While it’s entirely possible that the strike could end before Snow White’s original March 2024 release date, evidently Disney felt it was better to play it safe in order to ensure that Zegler and her costars would be available to plug it. So instead, it’s one of the few movies now officially slotted to come out in 2025 and arriving basically an exact year than had been the plan until today.
Rather than delivering a radically overhauled story similar to Maleficent or Dumbo, Snow White looks like it will be a more straightforward remake of Disney’s first feature-length animated movie, along the lines of what Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, among others, have done. However, elements of the story will be modernized for contemporary audiences. For example, Rachel Zegler has said that her version of Snow White will no longer be “saved” by the Prince, and we also won’t be getting another “love story.”
Although there’s been backlash to Zegler being cast as Snow White, rumors of the actress being let go from the role were greatly exaggerated earlier this month. She’s still inhabiting the title role, and her costars on the feature include Gal Gadot as The Evil Queen, Ansu Kabia as The Huntsman, Andrew Burnap as a new character named Jonathan, Martin Klebba as Grumpy and Colin Michael Carmichael in an undisclosed role. Marc Webb directed the movie, and Greta Gerwig and Erin Cressida Wilson wrote the script.
Needless to say we’ll continue providing updates on what to expect from Snow White during this extended wait. In the meantime, you can revisit its animated predecessor, as well as Rachel Zegler’s work in West Side Story, with your Disney+ subscription, while Max subscribers can easily access Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
