In “Moana,” the Polynesian heroine sings about the gravitational pull she feels to return to the water. Disney, the studio behind the live-action remake of the 2016 animated musical, might have been wise to ignore the impulse to go back to the sea … at least so soon.
Arriving a decade after the original and just two years after the animated sequel, “Moana” opened far below expectations with $43 million in North America and $95 million globally. It’s a terrible start for a movie that cost a staggering $250 million to produce and roughly $120 million more to promote. Unless ticket sales can rebound, “Moana” could be a costly lesson as Disney runs low on properties to revisit.
“Disney’s strategy is dependent on whether audiences see the remake as an event or a duplicate,” says analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “This was the latter. People wanted ‘Moana 3,’ not a remake of the original.”
The studio, which pioneered the modern trend of live-action remakes, has already cycled through much of its animated library, having reimagined or spun off “Cinderella,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan,” “Dumbo,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Lady and the Tramp.” Without much left in the vault to raid, Disney has begun updating properties from this century, with “Moana” being the most recent to get the real-life treatment.
Just last year, the live-action “Lilo & Stitch,” adapted from the 2002 animated movie, became a billion-dollar hit. So it’s not that audiences are tiring of these remakes. But they aren’t going to theaters just because Disney is dusting off a favorite and giving it a CG makeover, especially when the original is readily available to watch on Disney+.
“The takeaway for Disney has to be, how long does it take for an animated film to become a classic? As we just saw, it’s not about how successful the last film in the series is,” says David A. Gross, who runs the FranchiseRe movie consulting firm. “It takes time to be a classic, not just success.”
Although it’s too soon to label “Moana” a classic, the property is hugely popular with family crowds. The 2016 animated film is the most-watched movie on Disney+, and the sequel made more than $1 billion at the box office. Yet the goodwill didn’t translate for the remake: “Moana” launched on par with 2025’s bomb “Snow White.”
Critics derided the live-action “Moana” as a shot-for-shot retread of the first. Yet audiences were pleased with the movie, which holds a solid “A-” grade on CinemaScore exit polls. The studio hopes that favorable word-of-mouth will help the film stick around at the box office. That happened with Disney’s 2024’s “Lion King” prequel “Mufasa,” which opened to a soft $35 million but eventually climbed to $722 million globally. However, that movie opened around Christmas and had virtually free rein on the big screen through January and February. “Moana,” meanwhile, has competition from Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” and Universal and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters.” And although “The Odyssey” is aimed at older moviegoers, it’ll be taking the entire footprint of premium large formats starting on Thursday.
“Opening weekend is important, but ‘Moana’ is going to be about long-term playability,” says Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian. “That means you don’t want to see a 60-70% second-weekend drop.”
In the case of “Moana,” a decade could have been enough time to spark nostalgia. Problem is, the newest oceanic adventure was released in close proximity to “Moana 2,” which opened on Thanksgiving 2024. That wasn’t always the plan. “Moana 2” was originally commissioned as a television show, which began development simultaneously with the live-action remake. When Disney retooled the series into a theatrical sequel, the studio delayed the revival a year to separate the projects. Even so, moviegoers haven’t had much time to miss the likes of Moana, Maui and Hei Hei.
The triumph of “Lilo & Stitch” and misfire of “Moana” suggest there’s an art to the timing of these revivals. Disney has waited 27 years on average before revisiting an animated film, according to Gross. That distance has produced some of the studio’s biggest hits, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” each of which topped $1 billion worldwide. Kids who grew up on those late ’90s and early 2000s films were old enough to bring their own children to theaters.
“During that time, the remakes added an entirely new audience,” Gross says. “It’s been a very successful strategy.”
There’s such a thing as waiting too long to return. New takes on “Snow White” (1937) and “Dumbo” (1941) missed the mark because those properties no longer hold the same cultural relevance.
Though a live-action “Frozen” feels inevitable, “Tangled” is the only remake that’s currently filming. Disney put that production on hold after “Snow White” bombed but revived it after “Lilo & Stitch” scored just a few months later. The original movie about Rapunzel was introduced in 2010, putting the “Tangled” reboot in the nostalgia sweet spot. Moving forward, Disney is expected to prioritize a live-action sequel to “Lilo & Stitch” and spinoffs about the stepsisters from “Cinderella” and Gaston, the brawny villain from “Beauty and the Beast.”
“Disney will keep making these. For every one that doesn’t do well, there will be a ‘Lilo & Stitch’ that sets the world on fire,” Dergarabedian says. “The studio just has to keep the budgets in line.”
With a gargantuan budget, “Moana” will require at least $600 million to break even. (Theater owners get to keep about half of box office returns.) With a similar box office voyage as “Snow White,” which left the big screen with $205 million globally against a $250 million budget, “Moana” could lose more than $100 million theatrically. Compare that with the very profitable “Lilo & Stitch,” which cost a relatively modest $100 million without any major stars to command mega-paydays. For “Moana,” Dwayne Johnson — reprising his role as the demigod Maui — was paid close to $30 million as a producer and star and typically negotiates generous backend bonuses. Production on “Moana” was delayed by the 2023 labor strikes, which added a few million to the budget.
Disney justifies these price tags because movies like “Moana” generate more than just box office dollars. These tentpoles yield lucrative consumer product lines, theme park rides and Disney+ rewatches. “Moana” has fueled more than 22 million toy sales since 2016, inspired attractions across more than 40 Disney theme parks and helped drive 26 billion music streams, including 4.8 billion for “How Far I’ll Go.”
So “Moana” won’t be sailing off into the sunset anytime soon. A third animated movie is reportedly in the works and has the potential to become a hit. But Disney may want to take more time between trips to the island of Motunui.