Two is competition, but three is unnecessary. Facing consumer jetlag after Relativity’s (underwhelming) Mirror, Mirror and Universal’s upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman, Disney has put the brakes on its own Snow White spin, Order of the Seven.
Although no green light had been given to the project, it was fast on the way to becoming a reality after spinning its wheels for nearly a decade. Saoirse Ronan was set to take the lead role while Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Iron Man) were recently brought on to rework the script—all with the hope of shooting this summer.
However the recent bomb that was John Carter combined with the fact that Disney lacks a studio head (Rich Ross resigned shortly after “Carter” tanked) have led the Mouse House to re-evaluate several of its upcoming projects for budgetary reasons. No word on how much “Seven” was estimated to cost, but it sounds enough to warrant cutbacks for Disney.
Borrowing from the same foundation of the Snow White story, “Seven” was intended to follow the story of a young girl (Ronan) in 19th Century Hong Kong who escaped her evil stepmother and sought refuge with the Order of the Seven—seven warriors trained to fight monsters, dragons and seemingly all manners of evil. Only time will tell if Disney will revive “Seven” under a smaller budget.
The project joins a long list of recent projects that were put on hold for monetary concerns including The Dark Tower, At the Mountains of Madness and Disney's own Lone Ranger, which eventually received a greenlight after a budget cut.