'Moana' debuted just 10 years ago. Why Disney is remaking it as a live-action movie

In 2016, Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana” became a container bureau hit, captivating audiences with catchy earworms from Lin-Manuel Miranda and a spunky young heroine who rejected the statement of princess.

Now, conscionable 10 years later, it’s the latest Disney animated movie to beryllium fixed the live-action treatment.

Burbank-based Disney has agelong reached into its vault successful hunt of animated classics to redo successful a live-action format. But a decennary is the shortest clip betwixt 1 of the company’s archetypal animated movies and the reimagined film. (2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” which primitively debuted successful 2002, is the adjacent closest with a spread of 23 years.)

Why spell backmost to “Moana” truthful soon? The Polynesian wayfarer is highly popular.

The 2016 animated movie grossed much than $643 cardinal astatine the planetary container office, past spawned a 2024 sequel that made much than $1 cardinal worldwide. The archetypal is the most-watched movie successful Disney+ past with much than 1.5 cardinal hours of viewing.

“Every erstwhile successful a portion successful Hollywood, we marque a movie that is much than a film,” histrion Dwayne Johnson, who reprises his relation arsenic the demigod Maui, said onstage during the movie’s premiere Tuesday astatine the Hollywood Bowl aft a Polynesian creation performance. “I deliberation you could consciousness it already tonight, with our civilization and with what we person represented. But besides not lone our Polynesian civilization ... it’s besides a shared civilization astir the world.”

The latest “Moana,” retired this weekend, volition articulation a cadre of household films astatine the multiplex.

That includes Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” which has present racked up much than $774 cardinal worldwide, and Universal Pictures and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters,” which debuted domestically past week to a softer-than-expected opening of $62 cardinal for the five-day Fourth of July vacation weekend.

The weaker haul for “Minions & Monsters” has led to questions astir whether determination are excessively galore household films successful theaters, which could impact the reception for the latest iteration of “Moana.” But arsenic the past of this summer’s trio of large animated films, the runway could beryllium wide for the movie to physique steam.

“I don’t deliberation 2 movies marque saturation,” said Andrew Cripps, caput of theatrical organisation for Walt Disney Studios. “There’s a immense fanbase for the ‘Moana’ franchise.”

But with 2 “Moana” movies successful the past decade, volition audiences flock to different film? Analysts are expecting an opening play haul of $75 million, though workplace estimates are person to $60 cardinal to $65 million. The film’s accumulation fund is astir $250 million.

“When you look astatine these monolithic movies that were conscionable unthinkable — ‘The Lion King,’ ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ — they were brought backmost aft years and years,” said David A. Gross, who writes the manufacture newsletter FranchiseRe. “I deliberation there’s an statement that says lack makes the bosom turn fonder with immoderate of these. We’ll see.”

Early reviews of the movie person been mixed, and “Moana” has truthful acold notched a 37% standing connected aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is simply a astir frame-by-frame recreation of the original.

Disney’s live-action remakes person mostly been box-office boons for the company, with a fewer exceptions.

In the past 16 years, 5 films person grossed much than $1 cardinal globally, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” (Other live-action spin-offs based connected classical animated movies, specified arsenic 2024’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” and 2014’s “Maleficent,” besides had coagulated performances.)

“It goes backmost to the archetypal [intellectual property] of these movies,” Cripps said of the value of live-action films for Disney’s slate. “People turn up with it, they go fans of it, they unrecorded with it. When you’ve got IP that resonates truthful good virtually astir the satellite with fans, I conscionable deliberation it’s a clever extension.”

There person been immoderate notable misfires, including past year’s “Snow White,” which cratered astatine the container bureau amid a myriad of controversies, including racist backlash to the casting of Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, arsenic the titular princess, its depiction of small radical and its pb actors’ views connected the Israel-Hamas war.

In general, live-action retellings person besides typically performed good overseas — a marketplace that isn’t ever reliable these days.

Across 13 caller live-action films from Disney and different studios, each made much than 60% of their planetary container bureau gross successful planetary markets, Gross said.

By comparison, films crossed each genres typically bring successful astir fractional of their gross overseas, helium said.

“When these movies connect,” Gross said, “they enactment everywhere.”