Disney paid a $350 million price to learn audiences were not hungry for more “Moana” — or another live-action remake.
The live-action reimagining of “Moana” opened last weekend with a slouchy $43 million in domestic box offices, a crushing start for a film that cost $250 million to produce, and another $100 million to promote.
Studios typically split ticket revenue about 50-50 with theater owners, meaning “Moana” will have to earn at least $650 million to break even, according to Variety.
With just $43 million in ticket sales, the film only narrowly surpassed the abysmal start for “Snow White” last year. But unlike the controversy-shrouded “Snow White,” this “Moana” adaptation arrived quietly, without major backlash.
The film also avoided significant creative changes — a riskier approach taken by the recent live-action “Lilo & Stitch,” which made a record-breaking debut with more than $145 million in domestic ticket sales.
“Disney invented this live-action phenomenon based on their animated films, and they’ve had remarkable success with them,” box-office analyst David Gross said in his newsletter FranchiseRe. “But this opening isn’t close to Disney’s past remakes.”
In the late 1990s, Disney turned to live-action reimaginings as a risk-averse box office strategy built on nostalgia for animated favorites. The formula has generally worked, with many releases surpassing or approaching the $100 million mark during their opening weekends.
In recent years, Disney has accelerated the formula, churning out a new live-action remake nearly every year. Since 2010, the studio has adapted “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Dumbo,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Lady and the Tramp,” “Mulan,” “Pinocchio,” “The Jungle Book,” “Peter Pan,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Lilo & Stitch.”
But the formula is proving less reliable — and potentially more costly. So, where did the live-action “Moana” go wrong?
A ‘Moana’ overload
It’s been less than two years since Disney released “Moana 2,” and just under a decade since “Moana” debuted.
Disney might be giving audiences too much “Moana” too soon. The franchise has been hugely successful — the original animated film is the most-watched movie on Disney+ and its sequel earned $1 billion at the box office — but moviegoers haven’t been given enough time to miss Motunui.
On average, Disney waits 27 years before adapting one of its animated movies into a live-action reimagining, according to Gross.
“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,” Gross said, per Variety. “It takes time to be a classic, not just success.”
Waiting out that decades-long gap before revisiting many of its animated classics allowed Disney to produce some of its highest-grossing hits, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” all of which earned more than $1 billion worldwide.
It also allows a generation of fans who grew up with the late 1990s and early 2000s animated films to become parents themselves and bring their children to the live-action remakes.
“During that time, the remakes added an entirely new audience,” Gross said. “It’s been a very successful strategy.”
A summer of heavy competition
It’s a crowded summer at the box office.
“Moana” has to compete with “Toy Story 5″ and “Minions & Monsters” — both of which have already drawn huge crowds.
“Families love going to the movies, but right now there are three of them,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends for Rentrak, per The Guardian. “That’s a lot of competition.”
PG-rated films powered the box office in 2024 and 2025, so it might not be a case of “family movie fatigue,” Dergarabedian said, but three family films competing at once could create oversaturation.
‘Moana’ was blasted by critics
“Moana” earned overwhelmingly negative critics reviews, with many calling the film out as a blatant opportunity for Disney to fill its pockets.
The London Evening Standard called the film a “cashgrab as conspicuous as a giant, singing, treasure-hoarding crab,” and the San Francisco Chronicle called the film “weirdly soulless” and a “money grab.”
Vulture simply wrote, “Please stop” and The Times U.K. said the film, “provokes only an exquisite form of agony.”
Plenty of films overcome poor reviews, but few have had to go against the level of competition posed by “Toy Story 5″ and “Minions & Monsters.”
There’s nothing new about ‘Moana’
The live-action “Moana” is nearly a copy-paste of the 2016 animated version, offering little fresh material to entice audiences.
“The new ‘Moana’ technically has a new screenplay,” writes The New York Times. “Yet you’d be forgiven if you thought they’d just recycled the old one: All the plot beats are the same, and so are many of the lines and jokes.”
And The Wrap wrote, “It’s the Same Film, Disney Just Wants You to Pay for It Again.”
Though safely controversy-free, “Moana” adds nothing new to the story and there is little incentive for audiences to revisit a film they have already seen recently.
‘Moana’ box office might not be doomed
Despite its lackluster start, “Moana” could still benefit from a lengthy theatrical run and make up for its early losses.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” suffered a weak debut of $35 million, and after a nearly three-month theatrical run, the movie raked in $253 million in total domestic ticket sales and currently sits as the second-highest earning movie of the year, per Box Office Mojo.
In a statement, Disney called the weekend total “a good start ahead of a full month of summer vacation play with families.”
“This release also builds on nearly a decade of Moana’s growth as a franchise,” Disney added.
Is it time for Disney to quit live-action remakes?
Maybe. But it probably won’t.
“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 told Variety. “The studio just has to keep the budgets in line.”
Audiences are not tired of remakes and sequels yet. Disney’s “Toy Story 5″ has grossed over $888 million so far worldwide, while last year’s “Zootopia 2″ earned $1.86 billion worldwide.
Disney might just need to rethink its formula.
“Disney’s strategy is dependent on whether audiences see the remake as an event or a duplicate,” says analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations, per Variety. “This was the latter. People wanted ‘Moana 3,’ not a remake of the original.”