As mentioned above, it’s likely that the live-action version will adopt the same main plot as the original. However, while speaking at Disney’s D23 Expo in 2022, title star Rachel Zegler said that the original Snow White “does not work for today’s audience,” so they created “a new version of the character.”
“We did a really deep dive into fixing and making a modern woman out of Snow White,” Zegler explained. “I think she’s 13 in the original cartoon, so we started there and said, ‘No, she’s 18 in this one.’ She’s a bit more independent. She’s also living in grief. I mean, there was a lot of complex emotion that we decided to deep-dive into. And understanding what it’s like to be a teenager on top of all that.”
“We absolutely wrote a Snow White that she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love,” Zegler continued while speaking to Variety on the D23 red carpet. “She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true.”
In October 2024, Zegler also admitted that the live-action Snow White would introduce some changes to the titular character’s name and origin story, which famously owed its name to her “skin white as snow” in the animated film and original book. In an interview with Variety, Zegler revealed that this version of the story doesn’t copy the animated classic but instead looks to other sources of inspiration to inform its story in this regard.
“It fell back to another version of Snow White that was told in history, where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby,” Zegler shared. “And so the king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience. One of the core points in our film for any young woman or young person is remembering how strong you actually are.”
Who is in the cast of Snow White?
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