Disney’s live-action Snow White hits theaters March 21 with Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, but it’s not the first movie in recent years to mine the classic fairy tale. In 2012, director Tarsem Singh‘s Mirror Mirror starred Lily Collins as Snow White and Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen in an updated version of the Brothers Grimm tale, previously told in the 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The 2012 film debuted amid a wave of fairy tale reboots, following 2011’s Amanda Seyfried-led Red Riding Hood and coming two months before Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which starred Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth.
Singh remembers pressure for his project to beat Universal’s movie to the punch. “We don’t have nearly their budget and their machine, so we have to come before them,” the director tells The Hollywood Reporter of his mindset. Singh’s film was titled Snow White until Universal’s movie forced a change — much to his chagrin. “I said, ‘You just lost probably 150 million bucks because that name is what it is,’ ” the filmmaker admits.
He met with Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence for the main role before casting Collins. “The producers loved her and said, ‘You have to meet her,’ ” Singh recalls about his star, who has since led Netflix’s Emily in Paris.
The director says Armie Hammer was the top choice to play the film’s prince — and as it turned out, the cast enjoyed Hammer’s love of pranks. Martin Klebba, who played one of the dwarves (and voices Grumpy in Disney’s new film), would surprise Hammer with the rock salt that was used on set as snow: “When he wasn’t looking, I’d get a big scoop of rock salt, and I’d pour it down into his boots.”
Relativity released Mirror Mirror on March 30, 2012, and critics were mixed, with THR‘s review deeming the film “in need of a stiff shot of enchantment.” It collected $183 million worldwide ($254 million today) and received an Oscar nom for costume design.
Singh isn’t surprised iterations keep popping up: “A whole new generation comes, and they don’t want their dad’s Snow White — they want their own.”
This story appeared in the March 19 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.