Disney’s latest live-action remake, Moana, bombed so badly over the weekend that all the various trade sites covering Hollywood had to break out their thesauruses to figure out different nautical-themed words related to failure and flopping. The remake “floundered,” “ran aground,” “sank,” and “failed to make a splash” over its opening weekend, bringing in only $43 million domestically and $52 million worldwide for a total that isn’t that far off last year’s Snow White remake.
Moana, starring Dwayne Johnson and Catherine Laga’aia, hit theaters on July 9. Disney was expecting the remake of the 2016 animated blockbuster (which also starred Johnson) to make around $60 million domestically on its opening weekend. But with only $43 million at the domestic box office, it failed to hit that number, which was already a revised and lowered figure from Disney’s original $75 million prediction earlier this year. Ouch.
Making that $43 million opening even worse is that it’s barely higher than last year’s abysmal and extremely controversial Snow White remake. That film had a ton of baggage, controversy, bad press, and negative fan reactions connected to it before it even debuted in theaters. All that, plus negative reviews, led to Snow White only making $42.2 million domestically and $45 million worldwide on opening weekend last year. In other words, Moana, which had big star power and was connected to a more recent blockbuster and which had far less controversy and bad press ahead of its release, made only $1 million more in the United States over its opening weekend. And didn’t do much better globally, either. Ouch again.
Moana is reportedly set to lose Disney $100 to $125 million, according to sources that spoke to Deadline. And that’s assuming Moana goes on to make $250 million globally, which is doable, but far from guaranteed. The film reportedly had a total budget of nearly $395 million, when marketing is factored in.
So what happened? Well, a few things doomed this remake. For starters, many analysts and critics believe it came too quickly after last year’s mega hit that was Moana 2. Franchises like this do better when demand for a sequel or remake has built up for a few years.
Another problem is that Disney is competing with itself. Toy Story 5 brought in another $45 million during Moana’s opening weekend. It has now reached $880 million globally. For families deciding on what to see last weekend, and with ticket prices higher than ever, many likely made the choice to see something new instead of a poorly reviewed remake of an animated hit that is likely still in heavy rotation in many households and which just got a sequel last year.
“Disney knew when they re-dated Moana that they had Moana 2 and Toy Story 5 in the mix; why they even considered a release date in 2026 blows my mind,” one source told Deadline.
So far, Disney doesn’t have a new live-action project scheduled for 2027. Instead, fans will have to wait until 2028 to see the live-action Lilo and Stitch sequel.
