Rachel Zegler must be living the dream right about now. She has a starring role in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, a performance that early buzz is already raving about. But before that performance is even seen by most people, she's already joining a comic book movie universe with a role in Shazam: Fury of the Gods, and last but not least, she's been cast as Disney's live-action Snow White. She's shown just how excited she is to have landed that role already, and now she's gone straight to the source to help her give the best performance possible. She went to Walt Disney World.
Rachel Zegler shared an image of herself, with her Snow White backpack, watching Disney's Snow White go by, and she has officially labeled the interaction as "character research." I mean, if she's going to play Snow White, seeing how Disney portrays the character in "real life" inside the theme parks isn't the worst idea. Plus, you get to go to Disney World, which doesn't suck either.
These days you can never quite tell how much of an actor's social media is structured and planned and how much is truly them just being them. It's possible this entire trip was put together by Disney as part of promoting Rachel Zegler as Snow White. At the same time, Zegler made it clear on social media long before she was cast that she is a big Disney fan, and a Disney Princess fan specifically, so it's possible she was going to visiting Disney World right now whether the studio cast her or not.
Exactly what the plan is with the live-action Snow White is unclear. We know it is planned to be a full musical just like the original animated classic, and so it will likely be pretty faithful to the original, following in the vein of other remakes like Aladdin and The Lion King. Disney has found the most success when it has basically made the same movie over again. That's not to say that movies like Maleficent or Cruella have not been successful, but they haven't seen nearly the return that Beauty and the Beast did.
Another live-action Disney Princess movie, The Little Mermaid, recently wrapped up filming and we know we're getting a live-action Peter Pan with Peter and Wendy, and a live action Pinocchio, as well. Beyond that, a prequel to The Lion King is on the way, and a sequel to Aladdin has been rumored, but is not yet confirmed. At this point basically every animated movie Disney has ever made has at least been rumored to be up for remake consideration.
Where exactly Snow White will fit in all this as far as when it will go into production, who knows? Hopefully Rachel Zegler will have time for more research trips, there are many more Disney parks, after all.
