Disney officials have responded to Peter Dinklage’s criticism of their upcoming live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

During a recent appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, the Game of Thrones star said the upcoming remake was “progressive in one way” as actress Rachel Zegler has been cast as the lead but the film was still telling “that f**king backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together”.

Disney officials issued a response to his comments on Tuesday, insisting the dwarfs will be depicted differently in the remake.

“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” a spokesperson for Disney said in a statement to multiple outlets. “We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

The live-action remake of the classic 1937 animation will begin production later this year. It is being directed by 500 Days of Summer’s Marc Webb and will feature West Side Story’s Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen.

In his original comments, the Cyrano actor, who has a common form of dwarfism, said, “Literally no offence to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. But you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.

“Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough. I don’t know which studio that is but they were so proud of it. All love and respect to the actress and all the people who thought they were doing the right thing. But I’m just like, what are you doing?”

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