It’s barely been a week since Walt Disney Pictures clobbered the Memorial Day box office once again with Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin. There’s already talk about another live action remake of a classic Disney animated movie, the latest one being Snow White, the movie so closely connected to the late Walt Disney.
According to Variety, director Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man) is the top pick to helm the new adaptation-slash-remake with screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, The Girl on the Train) in talks to pen the screenplay. What might be more exciting is that Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote songs for the Oscar-winning La La Land, the Tony-winning Dear Evan Hansen, as well as Hugh Jackman’s The Greatest Showman have been tapped to write new songs.
Although Walt Disney’s 1937 animated film, the studio’s very first feature film, is still the most known and beloved version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — it has grossed over $400 million from various theatrical and home video reissues — there have been plenty of other attempts to revive the property. There was Tarsem Singh’s 2012 movie Mirror, Mirror, starring Lily Collins and Julia Roberts, as well as Universal Pictures’ Snow White and the Huntsman, starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth, which even got a sequel.
Having found success as a commercial and music video director, Marc Webb broke onto the movie scene when his debut (500) Days of Summer premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to acclaim. A few years later, he was handed the Spider-Man franchise by Sony with The Amazing Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, which was followed by a sequel a couple years later. That incarnation was not particularly well received and soon, Sony was talking to Marvel Studios about reviving the character with 2017’s Spider-Man: Far from Home with Tom Holland in the Spidey suit. Webb went on to direct the family drama Gifted, starring Chris Evans, and The Only Living Boy in New York, the former doing better than the latter but neither a huge hit. Webb has also been heavily involved with directing the pilots and exec. producing various shows.
I have a funny feeling that this is going to be another Disney project announcement received with general trepidation from the masses, not just because Webb seems to be another classic case of a white man failing upwards, but also, as mentioned above, there have been a number of attempted Snow White movies in recent years.
Let us know in the comments whether you feel strongly either for or against this project, Webb’s involvement as well as the idea of new songs from the La La Land duo.
My favorite tweet about this news:
“I’d rather be kicked directly in the face by a horse than see this.”
I quite enjoyed both Gifted and The Only Living Boy in New York. The latter was almost a Woody Allen -lite, but both films portayed not quite commonly seen perspectives; even if there were tinges of saccharine, greatly reward something where it’s due. I had no idea Marc Webb directed them both.
An immediate problem for a further Snow White adaptation is that it wouldn’t have Robert Carlyle stylishly camping it up as Rumplestiltskin, and benefitting by his episodes almost always being written by Jane Espenson. That would be a problem for me
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