Disney's Snow White turns into a $170 million nightmare

Disney is forced to write off large sums after Snow White—their major live-action venture from last year—failed to live up to the company's high expectations. According to new information from Forbes, the film has lost the company at least $170 million.

As some of you may remember, production costs spiralled far beyond what was initially budgeted, and the film only managed to gross $205 million, which was nowhere near the estimated production costs of $240-270 million.

Generally, major film companies only get back half of the ticket revenue (after all, cinemas and distributors need to get their share as well), which in Disney's case meant that they only collected around $103 million from Snow White. This was far from what was needed to cover the substantial production costs.

In addition, the situation was not helped by all the controversy surrounding the movie, which now has resulted in Snow White becoming one of few major failures among Disney's otherwise lucrative live-action adaptations, and an expensive lesson for the company.

Have you seen Snow White, and how did you think the film compared to the animated original?