![Image of Rachel Zegler in Snow White movie trailer](/static/dam/jcr:28ff3c74-a5c7-41e4-9f37-88b5b5d27c15/Screenshot%202024-08-14%20at%2010.10.02.png)
Disney D23 unveiled the first trailer for Disney's live-action remake of Snow White. The masterful 1937 animation now gets a glossy makeover from filmmaker Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man) in line with the studio's revised takes on The Lion King, The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast.
Here are some moments from the new Snow White trailer that pay nostalgic homage to the classic original.
Snow White's dress and the animals indoors
West Side Story's Rachel Zegler plays the live-action Snow White and she sports the famous blue and yellow dress ripped straight from the 1937 animation. It looks like this iteration of Snow White is hewing closely to the design of the original a la Robert Zemeckis' 2022 take on Pinocchio, which retained Pinocchio's exact look from the 1940 animation albeit in CG form.
Of course, one cannot have a Snow White movie without animals behaving distinctly non-animalistic. As with the original animation, Snow White enters the dwarves' cottage while surrounded by squirrels, chipmunks and birds. The main difference is that CGI has replaced the original hand-drawn look, which helped pave the way for feature-length animated movies and helped cement the Walt Disney brand.
The silhouetted dwarves returning home
Director Marc Webb is even more respectful to the original in the following shot of the dwarves. In the 1937 film, the sight of Snow White's eventual allies returning home to the tune of 'Heigh Ho' became one of its most iconic and enduring images. We get an almost exact life in the trailer for the 2025 film, albeit with CG effects enhancing the effect of the setting sun in the background.
Gal Gadot as the wicked witch and the poisoned apple
Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot taps into her evil side as Snow White's nemesis, the Evil Queen. The Queen's crown is a variation on the one seen in the original animation and of course, there's the shot of the magic mirror, the object that hastens the Queen's desire to get rid of Snow White. Look carefully at the trailer and you'll get the briefest glimpse of the Queen in her old hag form – this remains one of the scariest scenes from Disney's animation canon, so we can't wait to see how Gadot and director Marc Webb reinterpret this.
Snow White in the woods and the eyes in the dark
Who can forget the scene from the original Snow White when the title character is abandoned in the dark forest? The Queen initially plans to have the huntsman steal Snow White's heart but he can't go through with it and lets her run away. Will the remake grapple with this Grimm's fairy tale level of darkness? There are fan-pleasing homages to the original sequence in the trailer for the new film including sights of limb-like, clawing branches and eyes in the darkness, which in this instance turn out to be something far more benign.
Snow White is released in the UK on March 21st, 2025. If that seems too far away then check out our list of family movies coming soon in 2024.