Disney Spent $15 Million Developing A Kung Fu ‘Snow White’ Movie

Disney’s live action retelling of Snow White recently earned the ignominious accolade of becoming one of the lowest-rated big-budget movies on IMDB but it could have actually been a whole lot worse. That’s because it originally started life as a kung fu film which is about as far removed from the classic fairytale as you can get.

Although Disney has only become famous for its live action remakes in around the past decade, it reportedly began planning Snow White in the early 2000s.

Known as Order of the Seven, in a nod to Snow White’s companions, the picture was the brainchild of producer Andrew Gunn who was behind 2003’s Freaky Friday and is returning for its reboot later this year. Order of the Seven was originally planned to be a kung fu take on Snow White with Natalie Portman in the lead role.

It later evolved into a fantasy-action adventure film which retained an Asian flair as it centered on a young English woman in 19th century Hong Kong. She was set to flee the country to escape the clutches of an ancient evil empress who happened to be her wicked stepmother. This would have led to her seeking refuge with seven men belonging to a mystical order dedicated to fighting demons and dragons.

It might sound like the plot of one of the many rip-off stories based on the Disney characters which have come into the public domain on expiry of the copyright on them. However, this one had Disney’s seal of approval and although Order of the Seven hadn’t been officially green-lit the studio got far down the line in the production process.

By 2012, Saoirse Ronan, who shot to fame in Peter Jackson’s 2009 supernatural thriller The Lovely Bones, was tipped to star as Snow White. The fantasy flick was due to be directed by Michael Gracey, who went on to helm The Greatest Showman and Better Man, last year’s big screen biopic about the life of singer Robbie Williams.

In early 2012 several industry sources told Deadline that Disney was targeting a summer production start date and was in the process of finding an all-star cast of international martial arts sensations to play the team of warriors tasked with protecting the leading lady. By May 2012, work was continuing apace as Disney hired Oscar-nominated screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby to polish the script fresh from their success co-writing the screenplay for Iron Man. It all came at a princely price.

Like the latest incarnation of Snow White, Order of the Seven was set to be made in London and that shines a spotlight on the finances of the production. Studios filming in the United Kingdom get up to 25.5% of their costs reimbursed provided that they spend at least 10% of the total in the country.

In order to demonstrate this to the government in the U.K., studios set up companies there for each production they make in the country. These companies have to file financial statements which lift the curtain on everything from the staff salaries and social security payments to the total cost of the production and the level of reimbursement. So although Disney did not comment for this report, the data in it comes directly from the studio.

The financial statements are filed in stages starting before production begins. It takes a bit of detective work to get the information.

The companies usually have code names so they don’t raise attention with fans when filing permits to film on location. Tallying the company names with the productions they are responsible for requires deep industry knowledge which my colleague and I have built up over nearly 15 years reporting on the movie industry. We are the only reporters worldwide who specialize in covering the financial statements of U.K. film production companies for national media and we have reported on them for more than 10 leading titles including The Times of London, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the London Evening Standard.

The financial statements have a public interest in the U.K. media as the reimbursement to the studios comes from taxpayers’ money. Outside the U.K. the interest is in the bigger picture matter of the production costs.

In July 2011 Disney set up a subsidiary called Jade Productions to make The Order of the Seven. The company was dissolved in October last year but this author retrieved its financial statements at the time they were filed. They show that no expense had been spared as the company spent a total of $14.7 million (£9.3 million) and banked a $0.7 million (£0.4 million) reimbursement bringing Disney’s net outlay to $14 million. That’s some spending on a picture which didn’t even have a green light or a release date. It was all in vain.

In March 2012 Disney’s sci-fi fantasy film John Carter cast a dark spell at the box office when it grossed just $284.1 million worldwide against costs of $306.6 million according to this report.

In contrast, two months after it was released, Disney’s superhero team-up The Avengers hauled in $1.5 billion at the box office causing Disney to question whether its surreal Snow White film was a step too far. Having a first-time director at the helm reportedly contributed to the unease which was heightened by the recent departure of Rich Ross who resigned as Disney’s studio chief in April 2012 after it announced it would suffer a $200 million write-down on John Carter.

Perhaps for the best, the sometime kung fu Snow White flick bit the dust and the 2013 financial statements for Jade Productions reveal that “the company was involved in the production of the film ‘The Order of the Seven‘. The film was abandoned during the period.” Given its performance at the box office, some may be wondering why the new remake didn’t share the same fate.