Snow White was called 'Disney's Folly.' Roy thought it would bankrupt the studio. It took 3 years, $1.5M (equivalent to ~$35M today), 750 artists, 2 million sketches, and 250,000 finished cels. When it premiered December 21, 1937, it became the highest-grossing film ever made. The Academy created a special Oscar — one large statue plus seven small ones — because nothing like it had ever existed.