The avalanche of Snow White films is about to come to a halt. Mirror, Mirror entered theaters with a whisper and Snow White and the Huntsman is less than two weeks away from starting its run. Now, THR reports that Disney has stopped production on its loose adaptation of the fairy tale, Order of the Seven.
The film, which was set to star Saoirse Ronan and mark the feature directing debut of Michael Gracey, has been shelved (allegedly) due to increased budget scrutiny at Disney resulting from the financial disaster that was John Carter.
Initially a kung-fu take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Order of the Seven had evolved into more of a fantasy story about a young woman in 19th Century Hong Kong who escapes an evil empress and seeks the protection of an ancient order of seven warriors.
Order of the Seven has been in pre-production since last summer and lately, had been looking to set its cast of warriors despite still awaiting the green light. Iron Man writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby had even been hired as recently as a week ago to make final tweaks to the script so that filming could commence as early as this Summer.
Disney pulled a similar move with Lone Ranger last August, but director Gore Verbinski managed to make the necessary slashes to get the movie made, so not all is necessarily lost. That said, Order of the Seven doesn’t boast the director and star of Disney’s behemoth Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
