I don't think that was ever actually the plan, it was just Disney trying to make Dinklage happy, thinking he was the Alpha Dwarf who spoke for all dwarves in hollywood, that they just didnt say anything, which made everything worse.
Cause the first movie-dwarf cast (and maybe still the only actor we know about?) is a dwarf. He was the dwarf in the Pirates movies. And he wasn't in any of the random people frolicking set photos we have seen.
The funniest thing was disney staying course with the CGI dwarves when literally every other dwarf in hollywood responded to Dinklage's comments with some variation on "Fuck that, we want to play the 7 dwarves".