Moana remake lost Disney $100 million, audiences wanted sequel
Disney's live-action Moana remake is a catastrophe. Opened to $95 million worldwide against a $600 million breakeven threshold. The studio's banking everything on nostalgia-farming remakes and it's blowing up in their face.
The real problem: audiences don't want a shot-for-shot copy of something they already loved. They wanted Moana 3. A new story. Disney thought the name alone was enough to print money. It wasn't.
As David A. Gross from Franchise Re put it, being a classic takes time, not just a successful first installment. Disney forgot that part and went straight to the cash grab.
“Moana” needs at least $600 million to break even in theaters but only opened to $95M worldwide. The live-action remake could now lose more than $100 million theatrically. “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.” “Disney’s strategy is dependent on whether audiences see the remake as an event or a duplicate,” adds analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “This was the latter. People wanted ‘Moana 3,’ not a remake of the original.” https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/moana-box-office-bomb-disney-live-action-remakes-1236810179/
Source
x.com