Last weekend, Disney's live-action version of "Snow White" was released in 4,200 theaters in North America, which somewhat alleviated the urgent needs of the North American theater industry. However, the film only earned $43 million at the opening box office, much lower than the industry's expectation of $50 million, casting a shadow on the overall trend of the North American film market in 2025.
Red state audiences aren't boycotting Snow White
Two years ago, the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" took in $95.57 million when it opened on the last weekend of May, which was considered a complete failure at the time. Unexpectedly, two years later, the box office of "Snow White" was halved at its opening. Considering its cost of nearly 270 million US dollars, the outside world also had more doubts about Disney. The most obvious problem is that both films were embroiled in various controversial topics before they were released, especially the casting that broke with tradition and pursued diversity, which directly led to a large number of voices boycotting viewing.
Snow White poster
According to data from box office analysis company EntTelligence, the box office of "Snow White" in the so-called "red states", that is, those states that voted for the Republican Party and Trump in the last presidential election, is still significantly lower than that in the so-called "blue states", that is, those places that support the Democratic Party. Specifically, in the three-day weekend box office, the "blue states" and "red states" accounted for about 60% and 40% respectively.
The difference between "blue states" and "red states" actually has obvious geographical and social characteristics. The former are concentrated on the east and west coasts, and the local residents are more open-minded; the latter are mainly in the heartland of the United States, and the local residents tend to be conservative. The American film market has always focused on the east and west coasts represented by New York and Los Angeles. In terms of the number of cinemas, "blue states" account for 53%, slightly ahead, but the box office data produced accounts for 66.78% of the total US box office for the whole year.
In the past, for family-friendly movies like "Snow White" that target parent-child audiences, "blue states" accounted for an average of 63% of the total box office, while "red states" only accounted for 37%. Combining the above data, the fact that "Snow White" was able to get 40% of the box office in the "red states" this time is not only not lower than the annual average, but is somewhat exceptional. In other words, judging from the box office data alone, residents of red states are not necessarily particularly averse to Snow White.
Specifically, the film achieved better-than-average box office results in San Antonio, the second largest city and Dallas, the third largest city in the "red state" Texas, as well as Phoenix, the largest city in the "red state" Arizona. These cities happen to be the strongholds of Hispanic immigrants in the United States. Many local audiences are willing to buy tickets to watch "Snow White" because of the half-Hispanic ancestry of the lead actress, Rachel Ziegler.
Looking at national data, the weekend audience composition of "Snow White" was 43% white, 30% Hispanic, 11% black, 8% Native Americans and others, and 7% Asian. Among them, the proportion of Hispanics is indeed significantly higher than the past average. In addition, the theater with the highest box office over the weekend was also located in a "red state", namely the AMC theater in the Disney Resort in Florida.
Based on the above, the media concluded that the box office of "Snow White" was indeed bad, but the previous saying that "red state" audiences would boycott it because of ideology was not true, because "red states" have a large number of Hispanic audiences. In other words, it is true that Snow White had bad box office performance, but even if a white actor was cast in the lead role, it would not necessarily change the poor box office performance, nor would it necessarily reverse the general trend that Americans are increasingly unwilling to go to the cinema to watch movies.
As of now, the total North American box office in 2025 has dropped by 7 percentage points compared with last year, making those experts who predicted that the total North American box office would further recover in 2025 exclaim that they couldn't understand it. The total North American box office this weekend was approximately $77 million, slightly better than the $50 to 60 million in the previous weekends in March. But back in the decade from 2010 to 2019 before the pandemic, there was only one March weekend with a total North American box office of less than $100 million, and the average ticket price at that time was much lower than it is now. Yes, the data doesn't lie, the reality is so bad. Americans no longer go to the movies, at least not in theaters.
Warner Bros. to pay for "Number 17" box office failure
Ranked second on the weekend box office chart was "Black Bag," which had been released for two weeks; ranked third was "Captain America 4," which had been released for a month and a half; and ranked fourth was "Number 17," which had been released for three weeks.
At present, the cumulative North American box office of "Number 17" is only 40 million US dollars. Last week, a media outlet published an article stating that industry insiders familiar with the film analyzed that if nothing unexpected happened, this science fiction film would cause the producer Warner to lose US$75 million to US$80 million. The film's final global box office is expected to be $143 million, including approximately $46 million in North America and approximately $97 million overseas.
Poster of Number 17
The net production cost of "Number 17" after taking into account the tax refund benefits is 118 million US dollars. Adding various publicity and additional expenses, the break-even point is about 300 million US dollars. The outside world believes that Warner did not do an ideal job in cost control this time. For such a science fiction work that does not have a mature IP, the filming cost of 118 million US dollars is indeed a bit excessive. In terms of publicity and marketing, the investment of 80 million US dollars was even more excessive. For example, during the Asian Champions League alone, they spent 4 million US dollars on advertising for "Number 17". It is no wonder that there were reports that just before the film was released, Warner Bros. stopped or reduced some promotional activities, which could be regarded as a correction to its lavish spending in the early stages.
In addition, on March 10, some media broke the inside information that Warner had arranged a preview for it earlier, but the audience response was not good. So Warner skipped director Bong Joon-ho and edited a version of its own, which received better response after the preview. Director Bong Joon-ho naturally did not accept this, saying that the test screening response for his previous work "Parasite" was not very good, but the result was a huge success. In the end, Warner still respected the creative freedom of the artists and retained Bong Joon-ho's version, but unexpectedly, American audiences ultimately did not buy it.
Rain Man director's new film suffers Waterloo
In addition to "Snow White", there are two other new films released on a large or medium scale this weekend.
Warner's gangster film "Alto Knights" opened in 2,661 theaters over the weekend and earned $3.16 million, ranking sixth on the weekend box office list. The film is directed by Barry Levinson, who will be turning 83 next month, and stars 81-year-old Robert De Niro, who plays two roles. Logically, there are many highlights.
Poster of "Underworld"
As early as thirty years ago, Barry Levinson swept the Oscars with "Rain Man". His subsequent works, whether it was "The Last Jedi", which also touched on the gangster theme like this film, or "Wag the Dog", a political satire co-starring with De Niro, were both critically and commercially successful. However, times have changed. Over the past period of time, the reviews of several of his works have not been ideal, and many of them are TV movies, which do not have as much market appeal as before.
In this context, Warner is willing to invest 45 million US dollars to produce "Mafia". From an artistic point of view, this is a good phenomenon of supporting filmmakers and original works on the big screen, which is worthy of encouragement; but from a commercial point of view, just like supporting Bong Joon-ho's "Number 17", losses are inevitable. Moreover, compared to "Number 17" which has a 77% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, "Underworld" which has only a 37% freshness, it is not unfair at all that it lost money.
Another new film released over the weekend is Magazine Dreams, starring Jonathan Majors. Two years ago, in March 2023, he was at the peak of his career for playing the role of Kang the Conqueror in the Marvel movie, but he was accused of domestic violence against his ex-girlfriend. At the end of the year, a jury found Majors guilty of the charges and he was sentenced to attend a one-year domestic violence correction class. What’s even worse is that all the film contracts and advertisers he originally worked with left him because of this.
This "Magazine Dreams" was unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival as early as January 2023. After Searchlight Pictures bought the copyright, it was originally planned to release it at the end of that year. It even planned to arrange for the film and its leading actor Majors to compete for an Oscar. However, after the domestic violence incident was exposed, Searchlight Pictures gave up the copyright of the film and returned it to the producer. In October 2024, Briarcliff Films from New York acquired the distribution rights for "Magazine Dreams".
This film company, which was only established in 2018, was founded by Tom Ortenberg, who was born in the small town of Briarcliff, New York. Last year, it also won the North American distribution rights of the controversial work "The Apprentice" with great fanfare. It is obviously an independent film company that is not afraid of controversy. However, the film was released in 815 theaters in North America over the weekend and only earned $700,000 in opening box office, which somewhat disappoints its 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
