Son of original Snow White director disses upcoming remake: 'There's no respect for what Disney did'
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Disney's upcoming Snow White remake is making people grumpy.
David Hale Hand, the son of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs supervising director David Dodd Hand, has expressed his distaste for the studio's live-action remakes of animated classics — and argued that Walt Disney himself would disapprove of these productions.
As details surrounding the 2024 Snow White remake emerge, Hale Hand told The Telegraph that he stands in strong opposition to the new movie. "I mean, it's a whole different concept, and I just totally disagree with it, and I know my dad and Walt would also very much disagree with it," the 91-year-old said.
"There's no respect for what Disney did and what my dad did... I think Walt and he would be turning in their graves," Hand said.
Rachel Zegler, who plays the titular princess in the upcoming film, has sparked criticism as quotes from an interview with EW have recently recirculated online. "The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago, and therefore is extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world," Zegler told EW at D23 last year. "And so when we came to reimagining the actual role of Snow White, it became about 'the fairest of them all' meaning who is the most just, and who can become a fantastic leader."
While speaking to Extra TV at the same event, Zegler characterized the 1937 film as focusing on Snow White's "love story with a guy that literally stalks her. Weird!" She implied that the new remake, written by Greta Gerwig (Barbie, Little Women) and Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, The Girl on the Train), will not have as much of a romantic focus.
Everett Collection Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Hale Hand said he would prefer if Disney's original animated films remained untouched, calling the remake a "disgrace" for "trying to do something new with something that was such a great success earlier."
"I'm afraid of what they're going to do with the early films... [the company's] thoughts are just so radical now," Hand explained. "They change the stories, they change the thought processes of the characters, they just aren't the original stories anymore. They're making up new woke things and I'm just not into any of that."
Disney has released 19 remakes of animated movies since the runaway success of 2010's Alice in Wonderland, and currently has at least 11 more in development, including reimaginings of Bambi, Moana, and Lilo & Stitch.
Hand also insists that the original 1937 film, based on the 1812 fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, was "with good taste when it was written," and that he believes young people "have never seen the original" and "don't know what they're talking about" as a result.
The son of the original director argued in favor of creating new stories instead of remaking old ones, saying Disney "shouldn't be taking a classic and rewriting it in their own image. Pick on something else... create new characters, if you're gonna do this, but don't destroy or try to destroy something that is, that is a classic and is a beautiful piece."
Hale Hand worked with Disney as a designer and supervisor for the company's theme parks in California, Florida, and Paris in the 1990s, around the same time his father was recognized as a Disney Legend.
The elder Hand served as supervising director on Bambi before leaving Disney in 1944 after tensions arose surrounding Walt Disney's handling of animators' unionization efforts. He went on to found Gaumont British Animation, creating shorts in the Animaland and Musical Paintbox series.
The new Snow White is currently scheduled to release on March 22, 2024.
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