Amid the disappointing box office returns of its latest live-action endeavor, Snow White, Disney is reevaluating the future of one of its upcoming adaptations. According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, development on the live-action version of Tangled has been temporarily halted. Michael Gracey was slated to direct the remake, with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson penning the script. However, studio insiders revealed to THR on April 3 that the film's fate remains uncertain. (Us Weekly has reached out to Disney for comment.)
This revelation comes as Snow White continues to struggle at the box office. The Rachel Zegler-starring film, which reportedly cost $270 million to produce, has only grossed $69 million domestically and $145 million globally since its March 21 release.
For years, Snow White has been shrouded in controversy. Actor Peter Dinklage criticized the film's portrayal of dwarfism, while the son of the original 1937 film's director, David Hand, slammed the remake as "woke" and "insulting." Additionally, Zegler, 23, faced racist remarks for her casting as Disney's iconic princess.
Adding to the drama, rumors of a feud between Zegler and her costar Gal Gadot, who portrays the Evil Queen, have recently surfaced, although neither party has publicly addressed the speculation. Moreover, Zegler's comments describing Snow White's prince as a "stalker" in a September 2022 interview with Extra angered fans of the original animated film.
In a separate interview with Variety that same month, Zegler emphasized the modern twist given to the classic tale. "It's no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White that's not gonna be saved by the prince, and she's not gonna be dreaming about true love," she said. "She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. And so, it's just a really incredible story for young people everywhere to see themselves in."
In February, Zegler told Vogue Mexico that she viewed the criticism of the film as a sign of fans' passion. "What an honor to be a part of something that people feel so passionately about," she explained. "We're not always going to agree with everyone who surrounds us, and all we can do is our best."
Tangled was poised to be one of the latest Disney princess films to receive a cinematic revival. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson will reprise his role as Maui in the upcoming live-action Moana, with newcomer Catherine Laga'aia stepping into Auli'i Cravalho's shoes as the titular princess.
Although the live-action Tangled was still in its nascent stages of development, it had already faced its own share of controversy. Actress Avantika faced racist backlash when she was fan-casted as Rapunzel. In a May 2024 interview with USA Today, the Mean Girls star, who is 20 years old, reflected on the aftermath of the casting rumors. "Media literacy is a dying art in the day and age of social media, where you can consume content in short snippets and feel like you know everything without doing even brief research on it," she said. "It's very easy for people to jump to conclusions."
She added, referring to Zegler and live-action The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey, "To get a taste of what Rachel and Halle were experiencing, on a much smaller scale, definitely did scare me a little, because it must have been so much harder for them."
