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(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)
In the history of cinema, there are important movies. Then there are movies so important that it’s truly hard to picture cinema as we know it without them. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is one of those movies. The visionary behind Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney had already made a name for himself with animated shorts. Disney’s next big idea? An animated feature film. This may sound trite in the modern world but in the 1930s, it was an enormous box office gamble.
The notion of trying to keep audiences entertained with 90 minutes of animation seemed outlandish. Movies had only gone from silence to sound several years earlier. Would people truly turn up for a feature-length animated production? One that would cost a fortune to make, no less? The answer was a resounding yes. The end result remains one of the most influential Disney movies ever made. More than that, audiences have continued to turn up for the classic across decades, making it arguably Disney’s most enduring hit.
In this week’s Tales from the Box Office, we’re looking back at 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in honor of the release of Disney’s new live-action “Snow White.” We’ll go over how the film came to be, why it was so groundbreaking, what happened when it hit theaters, its various re-releases over the years, what happened in the years after its release, and what lessons we can learn from it all the years later. Let’s dig in, shall we?
The movie: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The history of this film could fill books. I won’t attempt to distill its unparalleled importance down to a few hundred words, but some background is key. The film is based on the famed 1812 Grimm Brothers fairy tale “Snow White,” which had been interpreted in other forms previously and has been interpreted many times since, running from “Mirror Mirror” to “Snow White and the Huntsman.” But why did Walt Disney decide to turn that story into his first feature film? In a commentary track produced for the DVD release, Disney explained:
“I don’t know why I picked Snow White. It’s a thing I remembered as a kid. I saw Marguerite Clark in it in Kansas City one time when I was a newsboy. They had a big showing for all the newsboys. And I went and saw Snow White. It was probably one of my first big feature pictures I’d ever seen. That was back in 1916 or something. Somewhere way back. But anyways, to me I thought it was a perfect story.”
Walt Disney announced his plans to make “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on a now legendary night in 1934. Per WaltDisney.org, “Assembling them on the sound stage at 7:30 that evening, Walt gave a performance that galvanized his artists with the excitement of the project they were about to undertake.” The details of that performance are lost to time, but Walt’s showmanship got his troops to buy into the idea of doing what had never been done before.
Disney’s grand plans didn’t come cheap. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was the first feature-length animated film made using Technicolor, among other major firsts. Though he estimated it would be cheaper, the film ended up costing $1.5 million — which equates to over $33 million in today’s dollars.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could have been Disney’s folly
The film as we know it centers on the kind hearted princess Snow White who charms every creature in the kingdom, save for her jealous stepmother, the Queen. When the Magic Mirror proclaims Snow White is the fairest one of all, she is forced to flee into the forest, where she befriends seven lovable dwarfs. The Queen tricks Snow White with an enchanted apple, with only the magic of true love’s kiss able to save her.
Big-budget movies are commonplace now, but they just weren’t as much of a thing back in the late ’30s, especially for what amounted to an experimental film. It also didn’t help that it took nearly four years to complete. All the while, Walt Disney Pictures was getting itself into an increasingly perilous financial situation in the hopes that this project would pan out.
“We had no idea what was going to happen when people saw it,” animator Ward Kimball said to The New York Times in 1993. “Disney was this person who made ‘Silly Symphonies,’ seven minutes long. W. C. Fields said that 90 minutes of bright colors would hurt people’s eyes.” Between the uncertainty, the meticulous reworking of the film behind the scenes, and the ballooning budget, “Snow White” was dubbed “Disney’s Folly” ahead of its release.
All of this to say, despite its reputation today, this was far from a sure thing. Disney is one of the biggest companies in the world now but before this movie came out? It was a well-respected animation house being headed up by a man with a grand vision. Grand visions don’t always pay off. Fortunately, that vision paid off handsomely, to put it mildly.
The financial journey
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” premiered on December 21, 1937. Things worked differently back then, as movies didn’t simply roll out onto thousands of screens all at once. The infrastructure simply didn’t exist. Be that as it may, the film’s reception was overwhelmingly positive. By all accounts it was one of those “history was made in an instant” moments. Disney’s vision paid off.
Precise accounting is hard to come by, but the film was a smash hit as it expanded to theaters all across the country in 1938. More importantly, because the film was so beloved and was such a success, Disney re-released it several times in the ensuing years, including in 1944, 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975. By the end of those releases, “Snow White” had made at least $66.5 million domestically. Accounting for inflation is a little tricky here but, needless to say, by modern standards that would be a heck of a lot more.
The groundbreaking success was recognized in short order. Not just by moviegoers the world over, but by The Academy as well. Walt Disney was presented with one of the most unique Oscars in history in 1938, a special Oscar consisting of one regular-sized award and seven smaller-sized awards, to represent the Dwarfs.
On the back of this success, Disney released a series of blockbuster animated features across the ensuing decades including “Bambi,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “101 Dalmatians,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” just to name a very select few. Not to mention other studios that then ventured into feature animation after Disney proved it was not only possible, but potentially very lucrative as well. None of that would have been possible without this film.
Snow White became a hit time and time again
As many of Disney’s other animated classics were being born, “Snow White” continued to be a remarkably reliable money-maker for the studio. The film was also released in 1983, 1987 and 1993, in addition to limited releases in 2021 and 2023. Each and every one of these releases was resoundingly successful, with the film’s running total domestically sitting just shy of $185 million. When taking international ticket sales into account, the lifetime gross is believed to exceed $400 million.
We’re talking about success that has sustained for more than 80 years. To put the success into perspective, the film holds the Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing animated movie at the domestic box office when adjusted for inflation. Per Guinness, its domestic total alone would equate to well over $1.5 billion. That would be substantially more than the current highest-grossing domestic release of all time, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($936.6 million domestic/$2 billion worldwide).
To add even more perspective: “The Force Awakens” is estimated to have sold around 108 million tickets domestically, per Box Office Mojo. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is also estimated to have sold 108 million tickets. So yes, we’re talking about a cultural event roughly the size of the return of “Star Wars,” albeit one that demonstrated sustained success over several decades. That’s remarkable.
Disney has also benefited greatly by being able to capitalize on “Snow White” in the home video market at every turn. From VHS to DVD, then later Blu-ray. The film even got a 4K Ultra HD release in 2023. This is one of the pillars that helped build the Disney empire, and it’s one that audiences around the world have turned up for over and over again. Scoring a big hit is one thing. Being influential is one thing. Being both of those things while also being able to wow audiences 50 years after being initially released? That’s truly rare air.
The lessons contained within
Reflecting on this movie’s legacy and success takes on new meaning in 2025. As these words are being written, a live-action reimagining of “Snow White” that cost well over $200 million to make is playing on thousands of screens all over the world. The reception to the film thus far can largely be boiled down to “meh.” It’s also doing middling business at the box office in the early going. All of this comes after 15 years of Disney making similar remakes in the aftermath of the success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010.
At times, these remakes have been rewarding for the viewer, such as with 2015’s “Cinderella,” in addition to being rewarding for Disney. Other times? Not so much. The situation is also becoming closer and closer to the snake eating its own tail, with relatively recent movies such as “Moana” already getting the live-action remake treatment. But this is the Disney of the 2010s and beyond. It’s all about big franchises now, and it pretty much has been ever since the Marvel acquisition went into effect.
Don’t get me wrong, it makes every bit of sense for Disney, in the modern era, to make “Zootopia 2,” “Frozen 3,” and “Toy Story 5.” But looking back at the sheer bravery and vision that helped turn “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” into an industry-altering, generationaly beloved success, it feels like we could use a bit more of that creative risk-taking at the Mouse House these days.
CEO Bob Iger has a remarkable mind for business, there’s no denying that. But what we need is a bit of that Disney vision of old so that the future isn’t merely a continued recycling of the past. Disney has often been a trailblazer in Hollywood. One can only hope those days aren’t fully behind us.
