Wtf? I didn't know this was that far into production


That said, Moana is huge on streaming so this should finally get Disney animation a box office hit post covid.

Edit: apparantly the series that was gonna be on D+ turned into this..,.? Uh doesn't sound promising but we'll see

Wait so Moana 2 and Moana live action are coming out within a year of each other?

Disney just gets worse and worse.

Moana 2 if they did it right would've been massive, live action Moana + TV series cut into a movie sounds like a horrible misuse in comparison. Will Maui be like Streep in Mamma Mia 2?

Probably not surprising they changed the D+ series to be a theatrical film instead given their performance at the box office last year. They also have a weak 2024, so getting something else in theaters is important.

Moana is a popular movie, and it seemed to grow in popularity for years after leaving theaters. So long as Moana 2 is decent, I would think it would do good numbers ($200-250m) based on the goodwill of its predecessor.

And maybe since it began as a D+ series, the budget isn't $250 million or something. Hopefully...

Hopefully that decision was done early in production as opposed to... now lol

They probably made the decision yesterday.

The IP is still very popular. Moana now adjusts to about $314M (4.39X multiplier from 3day OW). I have a hard time seeing this miss $200M+. Likely much bigger.

Gladiator, Wicked, Moana, Mufasa, Sonic, LOTR, Karate Kid over a 6 week period though. Too many family movies so I think Sonic should move to Feb. 2025 which has worked out so well for it in other years.

Also not getting my hopes up for a low budget. From the makers of Secret Invasion $211.6 million and She Hulk $225M for Disney+ shows.

Disney is refusing to acknowledge the signs that cultural tastes are changing and that it's not the 2010s anymore. They need to chart a course that's not just doubling down on CGI remakes, animation sequels, Star Wars, franchise reboots and superhero movies. Maybe that would mean not releasing so many movies, I don't know.

A big issue at this point is succession planning / Iger's short term role impacts their ability to really build for long term.

His compensation (but more likely his real job) is to get Disney back on stable footing for someone new to lead them into the next 10 or 20 years. And to help prepare the next successor better than the last one.

As a shorter term gig, he's not going to think as much long term so sequels improve cashflow now.

At the same time, they've already milked SW, live imaginings, Pixar, MCU so the sequel strategy can buy them another 2-3 years probably but seems like there may not be much original groundbreaking content coming from them for a while.

Great news surprising news
We watch Moana A LOT in my household

Lin-Manuel Miranda not returning to co-write the songs is disappointing. The soundtrack of the original is very popular, so wish them the best managing to live up to them here.

It would be HUGE if it was anything more than what sounds like those DTV sequels from the 90's and early 2000's that were just scrapped tv series cut into films.

Maybe I'm wrong but this sounds like it might be bad.

This will be a great replacement pick for the draft lol.