Moana Box Office: Live-Action Remake Among Weakest for Disney

“Moana” failed to make a splash at the box office, earning $43 million from 3,827 North American theaters in its opening weekend.

Those ticket sales, though enough for No. 1 on box office charts, are disastrous given the live-action “Moana” remake has a massive $250 million production budget — and that’s before Disney’s hefty marketing spend. Arriving in theaters a decade after the original 2016 animated musical and less than two years after the sequel, “Moana” underscores the trickiness of timing in terms of Disney’s live-action remakes. Wait too long, à la “Snow White” and “Dumbo,” and there’s not enough cultural resonance; go too soon, and there’s not enough nostalgia to bring audiences back to theaters for something they’ve seen before (and can readily watch on Disney+).

“Moana” also floundered overseas with $52 million for a global launch of $95 million.

“Disney invented this live-action phenomenon based on their animated films, and they’ve had remarkable success with them,” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe. “But this opening isn’t close to Disney’s past remakes.”

Heading into the weekend, Disney was projecting a $60 million to $65 million domestic debut and $140 million globally, which already would have been rocky for a tentpole of this size. After falling short of estimates, “Moana” is now contending with 2025’s box office bomb “Snow White” ($42 million debut) for the unfortunate distinction of the lowest opening among Disney’s live-action remakes. “Snow White,” an adaptation of a nearly 90-year-old property, left the big screen with $87 million domestically and $205 million globally against a $250 million budget. With a similar box office run, “Moana” could lose around $100 million for the studio in its theatrical run.

For the most part, Disney has been quite successful with live-action remakes of its animated classics. The studio’s adaptations of 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” and 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” were huge, each debuting above $100 million and eventually crossing the $1 billion mark. Those were based on movies from the ’90s and early 2000s, which seems to be the sweet spot for Disney. A remake of 2010’s “Tangled” is in the works with Kathryn Hahn as the villainous Mother Gothel.

“Moana” is much newer to the Disney canon, and although the musical franchise is hugely popular among families with young kids, the studio may have been too quick to revisit the oceanic world of Moana, a plucky wayfinder who is chosen by the ocean to restore prosperity to her island. Critics rejected the live-action version of “Moana,” which holds a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences who showed up were pleased, awarding the film an “A-” grade on CinemaScore exit polls.

This version of “Moana,” directed by Thomas Kail (“Hamilton”) and starring Catherine Laga’aia as Moana and Dwayne Johnson as the cocky demigod Maui, was released in especially close proximity to the animated sequel, which became a billion-dollar smash. That wasn’t intentional. “Moana 2” was originally developed as a television series before Disney opted to retool the project into a feature film. Once the sequel had pivoted to theatrical, Disney delayed the live-action project by a year (it was originally set for 2025) to put some distance between the follow-up, which opened around Thanksgiving 2024.

“The last ‘Moana’ was a smash 20 months ago, but that makes this a very brief return for a remake,” says Gross. “This story wasn’t ready to come back, and audiences are not rushing to see it.”

“Moana” is the third consecutive big-screen disappointment, following “Supergirl” and “Minions & Monsters,” in what’s otherwise been a standout summer season for Hollywood. The four-month stretch is poised to surpass $4 billion for only the second time since the pandemic and looks to be the biggest since 2019, a banner year for the industry. Attendance should rebound with the release of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” on July 17 and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on July 31.

“Moana” had competition with two major family-friendly franchises, Universal and Illumination’s “Minions and Monsters” as well as Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5.”

Second place went to “Minions and Monsters” with $20.5 million from 4,244 venues in its second weekend, a 45% decline from its debut. So far the “Despicable Me” spinoff has generated $108 million domestically.

“Toy Story 5,” one of the summer’s biggest hits, secured the No. 3 spot with $18.5 million in its fourth outing. It has earned a mighty $403.8 million in North America and $879.1 million worldwide to date, putting the film on track to surpass $1 billion. “Toy Story 5” should overtake its predecessor, 2019’s “Toy Story 4” ($1.07 billion), as the highest-grossing entry in the beloved franchise.

More to come…