Disney is back in the news in a bad way, this time thanks to Rachel Zegler, the actress set to play Snow White in the upcoming, live-action remake of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” That’s because she was recently caught on video deprecating the film’s plot, something that led to anti-Disney outrage and could sink the film.
As background, Zeglre said, “I mean, you know, the original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.” Continuing, she added, “We have a different approach to, what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story, just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude. It’s one of those things that I think everyone’s going to have their assumptions about what it’s going to be, but it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful.”
Well, branding expert Carla Speight predicted Zegler’s highly publicized comments could hurt ticket sales. telling the Daily Mail that Disney needs to handle the Zegler situation wisely, as mismanaging it could lead to yet more terrible news for woke Disney as it struggles to get people to watch its woke movies.
Speaking about that, Speight said, “Disney will need to be careful with how they have portrayed Snow White and what they do and don’t allow their actors to say about it going forwards. They simply cannot repeat the same mistakes and allow their actors to be so vocal in their own personal opinions during promotions.”
Continuing, she added, “It can have a huge impact on ticket sales, especially with the amount of negative backlash so early in the promo trail. They need to get the key messaging and strong selling point into a brief for the cast of the film and ensure they stick to it. If they don’t, it’s a disaster waiting to happen and the backlash will keep growing.”
And Speight wasn’t the only to call out the situation. PR expert Nick Ede also spoke to the Daily Mail and said the film’s star has proven she “isn’t the best person to promote the film,” with her comments obviously angering potential watchers of it.
Ede said, “Rachel is a big-named star playing one of the world’s most famous fairytale characters immortalized by Disney, but instead of taking the lead of ‘The Little Mermaid’s’ Halle Bailey and embracing her role, Rachel has actively chosen to spoil the narrative and express the new direction she has taken Snow White in.”
Emphasizing that point, Ede added, “This is by no means a wrong move and Snow White, and other stories, if they were written today would have very different nuances and narratives but the fact that she’s actively being negative about the source material and laughing off the old Disney film and the fairytale makes her look too eager to show off the new version and shows little or no respect for the previous version and other iterations. I am sure Disney executives must be having crisis talks and thinking perhaps their new Snow White isn’t the best person to promote the film and ensure it is a box office success.”
Featured image credit: By E M – https://www.flickr.com/photos/197718195@N06/52688620290/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128704298
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