“Snow White” star Gal Gadot has finally addressed the commercial misfire of the Disney live action movie and the backlash surrounding it. And her comment is bound to catch some more heat: the Israeli actress said that the film’s failure was due to Hollywood’s anti-Israel sentiment at the time of the release.
“I was sure that this movie was going to be a huge success, and then October 7 happened — and what’s happening in all kinds of industries, and also in Hollywood — is that there’s a lot of pressure on celebrities to speak out against Israel,” Gadot said during an interview with Israel’s Channel Keshet 12 program “The A Talks.”.
The October 7 incident she referred to was the Hamas attack on Israel pressuring the latter to free Gaza, the highly contested land bordering on both feuding nations. In the wake of the incident, which killed 1,195 people and reportedly had 250 Israelis taken hostage, Gadot became one of the loudest voices condemning the attack and demanding the release of hostages. Her action apparently did not sit well with a huge swath of the public, which criticized her for ignoring the complexity of the Gaza conflict.
She continued, “You can always explain and try to give people in the world a context about what’s happening and what the reality is here, but in the end, people decide for themselves. I was disappointed that the movie was greatly affected by that and didn’t do well at the box office.”
Further exacerbating Snow White’s issue was Gadot’s co-star Rachel Zegler, who played the titular princess. The “West Side Story” actress has been outspoken about her condemnation of Israel regarding the Gaza conflict, putting her political stance directly opposite of Gadot’s. The controversy surrounding the film’s two lead stars eventually bled into the movie, which underperformed with $205 million gross against its reported $270 million budget.