‘Snow White’ Reveals First Look After Announcing One-Year Delay, Pixar’s ‘Elio’ Also Pushed to 2025
Welcome back to The Great Delaying of Our Time. Today’s edition: Disney. After Sony announced multiple delays late summer and, earlier this week, Paramount confirmed several of their films are being pushed back amid the ongoing actors’ strike, Disney is now joining the party. The Bob Iger-led company has announced that two of their spring releases are being pushed back an entire year, including their next live-action remake, Snow White.
The next Pixar film, Elio, was due out on March 1, 2024; it will now open in theaters on June 13, 2025. It’s unknown if it’s because they weren’t able to finish recording the voice performances this summer and now it’s a little too late, or any other reason. The underperformance of this summer’s Elemental may have left the company with cold feet when it comes to original Pixar stories. Inside Out 2 is coming out in June 2024 and, as of now, they haven’t moved it yet.
But the big news of the day is of course Disney’s Snow White, which announced a year-long delay, from March 22, 2024, to March 21, 2025. The Marc Webb-directed live-action reimagining wrapped production months ago, so the news came a little out of left field. Perhaps they had scheduled (significant?) reshoots for the film that would have happened this summer/fall, and that they weren’t able to conduct due to the labor situation in Hollywood. Rachel Zegler stars as the title character, while Gal Gadot plays the Evil Queen.
But here’s the main question: Dwarfs or no Dwarfs? Back when production was being set up for the film in early 2022, Disney came under fire when Peter Dinklage publicly shamed them for doing a “backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together”, to which the company replied they were taking a “different approach” to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes” from the animated film. TheWrap had reported the seven characters would be replaced by magical creatures. Well, maybe not anymore.
Disney revealed today the first official picture for Snow White, to try to calm the waters after announcing the delay, and they might have done the opposite. My original point is all the more relevant now: They decided to go with “magical creatures”, according to TheWrap, instead of casting seven actors with dwarfism. But it’s even worse now, because instead of seven actors, they went with CGI characters. Hugh Grant must be relieved, his turn as the Oompa-Loompa doesn’t really seem like a big deal. (Seriously, though, how wasn’t Peter Dinklage the first actor cast in the movie?)
Also, the inevitable happened today, as they have removed Magazine Dreams from the Searchlight calendar this fall. The bodybuilding drama is led by Jonathan Majors, who was expected to receive a major Oscar push this fall, but after his recent legal troubles, it’s been widely expected that Disney would not see through with its release. It was originally scheduled for December 8; then they set Emma Stone’s Poor Things for that same spot and didn’t move the Majors-led drama. Well, now they did, and it looks like they’re gonna have to eat up the $20M they paid for it at the Sundance Film Festival if the actor isn’t vindicated by the court. His trial will start on November 29.
Disney’s release date shuffling is just the beginning though. At this stage, it feels weird that a Disney rescheduling doesn’t include any Marvel title. It was the perfect time to confirm the Deadline report that Deadpool 3 will not be coming out on May 3, 2024. But they didn’t, which strongly suggests they are saving this for a later time when they will combine it with more reschedulings. Thunderbolts and Blade seem to be on the chopping block at the time, although Captain America: Brave New World could benefit from it and return to its original May 3 spot. Also: The Marvels is coming out in two weeks. Seems like everyone has forgotten about that.
Elsewhere in the Multiverse, Warner Bros. announced a massive two-day delay of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Why is it massive? Well, who knows. What’s even the reason for that? Maybe they just wanted to keep the headlines flowing.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
