Live-action remakes have become like bread and butter on the upcoming Disney movies list lately, but the live-action Moana is the first time we’re seeing such a new animated movie get the treatment. If you've been wondering why the House of Mouse jumped on remaking Moana so quickly, and we’ve got a new answer from one of the company’s key decision makers.
Andrew Cripps, who is the Head Of Theatrical Distribution globally at Walt Disney Studios just shared his thoughts on the subject amidst the rough reviews coming out around Moana often calling the movie "unnecessary". In his words to the LA Times:
I don’t think two movies make saturation. There’s a huge fanbase for the Moana franchise.
For big movie studios like Disney, when fans put their time and money into a franchise it helps decide what we see next on movie schedules. In terms of the Moana movies, the 2016 original film made $643 million worldwide and remains the most-watched movie in Disney+ history. Additionally, Moana 2 crossed $1 billion globally after hitting theaters during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2024. As Cripps also added:
It goes back to the original [intellectual property] of these movies. People grow up with it, they become fans of it, they live with it. When you’ve got IP that resonates so well literally around the world with fans, I just think it’s a clever extension.
The Moana remake was an opportunity for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to portray his role of Maui in live-action alongside a new Moana actress, Catherine Laga'aia, and even bring back the original voice actress in a special way. Johnson and director Thomas Kail have also spoken about their excitement to bring the movie’s representation of Polynesian culture to the forefront as another special reason for its existence.
But just as the enthusiasm for the animated Moana movies communicated to Disney to make this “extension” to the franchise, we'll have to see how the response to this live-action version might determine the future of more remakes of contemporary Walt Disney Animation favorites. The live-action Tangled movie is currently in production and a sequel to last year’s Lilo & Stitch is expected to start filming later this year. But so far, the most popular live-action movies have come from Disney's Renaissance Era (i.e: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin).
Critics have greatly rejected the live-action Moana, calling it “a quick and easy buck” and “the most unnecessary remake yet.” And opening weekend projections place the movie in the neighborhood of flops like Dumbo and Snow White. But it's way too soon to say how audiences feel about it.
Now that Moana is in theaters, we'll have to wait and see how far it goes this summer alongside other family films like Toy Story 5 and Minions & Monsters. It should also reveal if it was actually too soon to bring a live-action version to the big screen.
