# When did Disney’s original SNOW WHITE break even?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-disney-s-original-snow-white-break-even/1016562>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [April 3, 2025, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-disney-s-original-snow-white-break-even/1016562 "2025-04-03T10:37:56Z")\
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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-disney-s-original-snow-white-break-even/1016562/1 "2025-04-03T10:37:56Z")

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All the clucking about what a “box office bomb” the new SNOW WHITE is has me wondering. I once heard that the original cartoon released three or four times before it made a profit. My Google search came up dry, so does anyone on the Boards here know the details of when the original Disney version of the story broke even?

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**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-disney-s-original-snow-white-break-even/1016562/2 "2025-04-03T10:43:04Z")

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> _Snow White_ premiered at the [Carthay Circle Theatre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthay_Circle_Theatre) in [Los Angeles, California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California), on December 21, 1937, and went into general release in the United States on February 4, 1938. Despite initial doubts from the film industry, it was a critical and commercial success, with international earnings of more than $8 million during its initial release against a $1.5 million production cost, becoming the [highest-grossing film of 1938](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_in_film), and briefly holding the record of the highest-grossing [sound film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film) of all time. It was also the [highest-grossing animated film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_animated_films#Timeline_of_highest-grossing_animated_films) for 55 years.

> **[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film))**
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> Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the production was supervised by David Hand, and was directed by five sequence directors, including Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, and Ben Sharpsteen. It is the first animated feature film produced in the United States and the first cel animated feature f...

Note that also at that time Disney paid its animators not that well–although most people were also not making much money in the Depression:

**Where Dreams Come True?: The Impacts of the 1941 Animators’ Strike**

> **[vol49\_matthew\_dominguez\_disney.pdf](https://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/vol49_matthew_dominguez_disney.pdf)**
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> 1690.02 KB

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**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\
**Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-disney-s-original-snow-white-break-even/1016562/3 "2025-04-03T13:49:35Z")

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> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#):
>
> All the clucking about what a “box office bomb” the new SNOW WHITE is has me wondering. I once heard that the original cartoon released three or four times before it made a profit.

Maybe you’re thinking of Pinocchio which had a hard time making money because WW2 cut off the European and Asian markets?