Disney’s latest live-action remake Snow White reportedly taps Greta Gerwig to write the adaptation of the classic animated film. Gerwig has become quite well known in the past few years. Her notable breakthrough works include 2017’s Lady Bird and 2019’s Little Women, which includes writing and directing credits for both films. Lady Bird and Little Women went on to be critical successes with Little Women being nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. More recently, Gerwig was recruited to write a live-action Barbie film and was later confirmed to be directing the film, which will star Birds of Prey’s Margot Robbie.
Snow White has already found its leading ladies, having casted Rachel Zegler in the title role and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. Zegler is an up-and-coming actress with one of her first roles out of the gate being Maria in Speilberg’s West Side Story. Gadot is best known for her role as Diana Prince in Wonder Woman. The film will be directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) and produced by Marc Platt (Dear Even Hanson, La La Land, Cruella) and Russell Allen (The Lion King, Jurassic World). New songs from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman, Dear Evan Hansen) will be featured alongside the beloved original tracks.
Today, The DisInsider reports that Gerwig has been brought on as a writer for the film. The report also suggests that Gerwig has been involved with the writing for some time and has already compiled a draft for the project. Production on Snow White is said to begin production early next year with musical rehearsals to be followed by filming around March.
Disney has not been shy about their ambition to remake their classic animations into live-action films. Since their first venture into the live-action remake in 1994 with The Jungle Book, Disney has pushed out over a dozen live-action films and has a dozen more in development. The films themselves have been hit or miss, because while it is easy for these films to tug at nostalgia, they sometimes depend too much on nostalgia rather than putting forth an engaging film. Disney’s remakes often try to bring forth new interpretations of the film, but ultimately fail, because they fall too far from their source material, like that of 2020’s Mulan.
The creative team, overall, seems like a good start to making this film shine. Gerwig is surely an excellent addition to the team as her work on Little Women was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. From her work on Little Women, she has a great eye for what works in an adapted film and how to make something audiences have seen before into something new. This experience is necessary in Snow White because, like The Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey, the film has a diverse cast of which early audiences were skeptical. Bringing forth an adaptation that is new while still maintaining the aspects audiences fell in love with is entirely within Gerwig’s ability.
Source: The DisInsider