Disney’s live-action ‘Snow White’ reboot starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot seemed like a can’t-miss project five years ago. But have some PR missteps combined with anti-woke outrage turned marketing the film into a poisoned apple?

Disney’s Snow White won’t hit theaters until March 21, but for the team at the Mouse House, that date can’t come soon enough.

The female-skewing live-action event pic, which remakes Walt Disney’s cherished 1937 animated classic, has been under fire for years on social media due to a combination of the film’s progressive creative decisions and star Rachel Zegler‘s controversial comments, while also suffering from culture-war attacks that seemed doggedly determined to torpedo the perceived “woke” film no matter what.

As a result, Disney is handling the movie’s rollout in some unique ways.

In news that broke earlier this week, Disney is taking next-level measures to stage manage the film’s world premiere in Los Angles on March 15. While the event won’t be scaled back, as some headlines claimed, the studio isn’t allowing regular red carpet press to attend in order to prevent Zegler and Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen, from answering questions on the spot. (The studio’s position is that they opted for “a more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film.”)

Snow White isn’t the first major film to manage a red carpet in such a restricted way. Warner Bros. did much the same for the world premiere of The Flash, starring the embattled Ezra Miller. But Miller had been accused of several criminal acts, whereas Zegler has simply generated social media blowback for comments ranging from criticizing the original film to slamming Donald Trump. Gadot, meanwhile, is a divisive figure on social media due to the Israeli actress speaking out in support of her native country since the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas. After her appearance at the Oscars, a baseless rumor circulated online that the Wonder Woman star refused to present best documentary to the Palestinian film No Other Land (her reps say she was never asked).

The film (trailer below) also isn’t getting a traditional U.K. premiere. Instead, Zegler — who won an open casting call to portray Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story — will perform in front of the castle in Segovia, Spain, that inspired the castle in Walt Disney’s original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Even before the L.A. premiere news, however, there was a sense that Disney was being a bit Bashful about Snow White. One theater owner and a rival studio source says Disney’s massive marketing machine has been uncharacteristically quiet until quite recently, noting advance ticket sales didn’t commence until Monday — less than two weeks before the film’s release. Many of the studio’s live-action family tentpoles in recent years have typically become available to book least one month before the film opens, including last year’s Christmas Mufasa: The Lion King and 2023’s summer tentpole The Little Mermaid. Snow White, however, is a spring title coming out during a particularly quiet year, meaning it has little competition of rival films for girls and older females.

“They’ve been going through the motions on Snow White, all but saying, ‘We need to get this thing over with,’” an exhibition source tells THR. “An advance sales cycle of less than two weeks just screams, ‘We have zero faith in this thing.’ And it couldn’t come at a worse point, when the industry is just trying to limp along to May.”

Disney insiders dispute this narrative, saying they always intended to hold back the film’s big promotional push until the final few weeks, beginning when Zegler and Gadot presented together at the Oscars on March 2.

Billboards have popped up all over L.A. and the film’s stars have also been doing long- and short-lead interviews, culminating with a junket this coming weekend with director Marc Webb. Many of the press appearances so far have been for outlets that one might perceive as rather safe — Gadot has made the rounds with Good Morning America, Live With Kelly & Mark and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.

Zegler, meanwhile, was dispatched with Webb to Tokyo, where she performed “Waiting on a Wish,” the first single from Walt Disney Records’ original soundtrack for the film. She was joined by Japanese actress and singer Sakura Kiryu, who provides the voice of Snow White in the Japanese version. The 23-year-old actress will fly back to the States for the L.A. premiere following the stunt in Spain.

Ironically, the film is tracking rather nicely for a March release despite all the hand-wringing and hubbub, with Snow White likely debuting at $50 million to $56 million domestically, according to a leading tracking service. If it comes on the high end, that would be somewhat on par with the Cinderella remake, which opened to $67 million in 2015. But an exhibitor source worried that unless there’s a late-breaking surge of moviegoer interest, the opening might be more in line with Dumbo’s $45 million debut in 2019.

How we got here in the first place is a long and tangled tale.

Snow White came under fire in an ugly fashion almost immediately in 2021 after the casting of Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, for playing the character with skin famously “as white as snow.”

There were also erroneous reports regarding the Seven Dwarfs. From the outset, Webb intended for them to be CGI characters based on the 1937 film.

Two years ago, Zegler strongly suggested she didn’t like the original film. Across a trio of interviews with different outlets, Zegler called the original “extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power,” said Snow White’s prince “literally stalks her” and noted, “People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s like, yeah, it is — because it needed that.”

After Trump was elected in November, Zegler took to Instagram to vent: “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace,” and added, “There is a deep deep sickness in this country.” She quickly apologized for her comments.

Five years ago, Disney could have hardly imaged that its two leading ladies would end up both drawing fire for their political views while on the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. But like it or not, this week it’s heigh-ho, heigh-ho, off to the premiere and press junkets they go.

A previous version of this story incorrectly characterized the casting of the Seven Dwarfs. THR regrets the error.