Disney's Snow White film tops box office despite bad reviews

Disney's live-action version of the classic fairy tale Snow White has topped the North American box office chart despite a slew of underwhelming reviews.

The movie has taken an estimated $87.3m (£67.5m) globally during its opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. Almost half of that figure came from North America.

But that is below expectations for a film which reportedly cost more than $270m.

The reworking of the 1937 feature length animation had seemed like a surefire hit before running into a series of controversies ahead of its release.

The revamp of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became a flashpoint for social and political divisions, even before it reached cinemas around the world.

That included some criticism of the casting of Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, as the heroine.

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There was also a backlash about Zegler's pro-Palestinian comments and about pro-Israel comments by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays Snow White's stepmother, the Evil Queen.

And there is an ongoing debate about whether there should have been dwarfs in the film at all, live or computer-generated imagery (CGI).

In mainland China, Snow White ranked outside the top five movies in cinemas, according to EntGroup's China Box Office website.

In the country of more than 1.4bn people, it brought in less than a $1m in its first three days in cinemas.

"I suspect that the multiple controversies have dulled the film's appeal," entertainment industry consultant Patrick Frater told the BBC.

"That and the waning impact of many Hollywood productions in Asia which we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic."

On the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Snow White has a critics' score of just 44%, although the audience reaction 'Popcornometer' stands at 73%.

The Guardian’s Wendy Ide described it as “toe-curlingly terrible”, but the Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney called the film "mostly captivating".

With its creepy CGI dwarfs and muddled tone, Disney's latest live-action remake is "not calamitous" but is "a mind-boggling mash-up", the BBC's Nicholas Barber said.