The Walt Disney Company has reportedly suffered a loss of about $170 million on its live-action remake of Snow White, following years of controversy and a disappointing response at the box office.
According to figures published by Forbes, filings show the film cost a whopping $336.5 million to produce.
The unusually detailed spending emerged because the movie was shot in the United Kingdom, where productions qualify for generous tax reimbursements but must disclose costs, the outlet reported.
Disney created a subsidiary company, Hidden Heart Productions, to meet those rules and disclosed the budget that would normally remain private.
Writing in for the outlet, contributor Caroline Reid noted that costs had spiralled early.
“By July 31, 2022 Disney had already spent a staggering $183.3 million on making Snow White even though principal photography had only just wrapped,” she wrote.
The final tally, she added, placed the remake above the budgets of several Disney blockbusters, including Rogue One, Guardians of the Galaxy and Beauty and the Beast, the latter of which grossed $1.3 billion worldwide.
The government reimbursed $64.9 million, reducing net costs to $271.6 million. Even so, ‘the costs of bringing the movie to theaters themselves, a new level of complexity was added to the expenses.’
Reid explained that theatres typically keep around half of ticket sales. Applying that split, Disney would have received roughly $102.9 million, leaving what she calculated as a $168.7 million loss.
Another outlet described the performance more bluntly, calling it ‘one of the biggest box office bombs in the history of the movie business, in pure dollar value terms.’
