Six years after director Marc Webb first signed onto the project, Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White is finally coming to movie theaters. It’s been a long and arduous road, with countless mega-events (including the COVID-19 pandemic and Disney’s ups and downs at the global box office) occurring over those six years. Even the general public’s relationship to these live-action remakes has evolved over the years, as seen by the worldwide box office total of 2023’s The Little Mermaid not being quite as high as Aladdin or The Lion King four years earlier.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Even before Webb signed on to helm this feature, the Mouse House was enamored with a live-action incarnation of “the one that started it all, as the studios marketing often dubs Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This historical animated feature was seen as such a high priority for Disney that there was even once an attempt to get two bites at the (poisoned) apple when it came to this property. Once upon a time, Disney had plans for a live-action Snow White spin-off entitled Rose Red.
What Was Rose Red?
In 1837, the Brothers Grimm published Snow-White and Rose-Red, a saga that was not connected to the duo’s initial Snow White story from 1812. Snow-White and Rose-Red is a bizarre little story about two girls who, while living with their poor mother, are visited by a talking bear. This ursine quickly becomes their friend and a de facto houseguest in their domicile. Eventually, a villain emerges in a Dwarf wanting to take the bear’s treasure. The story, naturally, climaxes with the bear murdering the Dwarf, which triggers the bear’s return to its original human form. Why on Earth didn’t either of the two Snow White & The Huntsman movies adapt these storylines?!?
Snow-White and Rose-Red has been greatly overshadowed in history by the other Brothers Grimm Snow White story. Adaptions of this story into other mediums are limited, with only a handful of 20th century German films ever trying to put it into live-action. Still, the concept of there being another Snow White story out there, complete with a potentially marketable character like Rose Red, clearly enticied Disney executives. In early 2016, news broke that Disney had ordered a script for a Rose Red movie, which would’ve made Rose Red the sister of Snow White like in the 1837 fable.
This time, though, Rose Red would’ve been siblings with the Snow White who sings about how “someday, my prince will come.” The proposed plotline for Rose Red was that Rose Red teamed up with the Seven Dwarfs after her sister fell into that eternal slumber from eating a certain poisoned apple. Red and the Dwarfs then set off an adventure to save Snow White. While Disney had a traditional Snow White in remake at the time as well, one has to wonder if prioritizing Rose Red was a way to get around the deluge of live-action Snow White movies in the ealry 2010s. Snow White & The Huntsman and Mirror Mirror had followed the template of classic Snow White stories. Now, Rose Red was aiming to try something else while still exploiting Disney IP.
[RELATED: First Snow White Reactions Praise Disney Remake Despite “Uncanny” CGI Dwarves]
The Demise of Rose Red
The only other major development that Rose Red would recieve after that 2016 announcement was rumblings in 2018 that Brie Larson was being eyeballed for the title role. Given that Brie Larson was shooting Captain Marvel at the time, ptoentially putting her in Rose Red was likely seen as a keen way of keeping an Oscar-winning performer in the Disney family. Still, Rose Red’s dire fate was sealed roughly a year after its existence was first announced.
Rose Red was clearly concieved to avoid hitting the same beats as Snow White & The Huntsman and Mirror Mirror while also evoking another live-action Disney movie offering a “twist” on a familiar fairy tale, Maleficent. A year after the announcement of Rose Red, though, the super-faithful adaptstion of Beauty and the Beast shattered box office records and left all three of those early 2010s fantasy films in the financial dust. A new mold for Disney remakes was established that Aladdin and The Lion King would follow to a tee.
Audiences wanted faithfulness in these projects, not revamps. With that, the idea of doing a live-action Snow White adaptation focused exclusively on a radically overhauled third act and her sister was thrown out the window. There were never any further developments on this production, with Rose Red stuck back on the shelf with the other obscure Brother’s Grimm fairy tales. The smattering of Rose Red fans out there will just have to hope the character gets some kind of subtle shout-out or reference in Marc Webb’s long-stewing Snow White remake.
Snow White hits theaters on March 21.
