What went wrong with Disney’s live-action Moana
3 hours ago
Disney
The latest of Disney’s live-action remakes, of its beloved 2016 animation, opens this week – and could be a surprising flop. From the moment it was announced, it has been ill-fated
When a trailer for the new live-action remake of Disney’s Moana went online in March, one of the main talking points was the sight of Dwayne Johnson’s long, curly and weirdly unconvincing wig. The Rock’s locks prompted countless unkind comments, but the most damning insult came from the accordion-playing, pop-parodying Weird Al Yankovic, who posted a photo of the bewigged Johnson on Instagram, alongside the caption: “We’ve told all the casting agents that the Weird Al biopic sequel is currently on hold, but they just keep sending in headshots.”
Ouch. Yankovic’s assertion that he and Johnson were lookalikes may have been a jowasn’t getting the reverence that Disney might have hoped for. Well before its release, the new version of the Polynesian princess’s ocean-going adventures was hit by wave after wave of criticisms
Now various cinema tracking specialists have predicted that Moana will earn between $50m and $85m (£37m and £64m) in its opening weekend in the US: that’s less than half of what another Disney remake, Lilo & Stitch, earned in the same period a year ago – and a long way from what the studio might have expected from one of its most popular pieces of IP. As it turns out, the quality of the film itself could be the problem
The live-action Moana is uncannily similar to the cartoon – but at no point does it ever match it. While the cartoon’s animation was dazzlingly bright and rich, with joyous character design and luminescent views of turquoise waves and verdant island scenery, the live-action rehash has lots of relatively ordinary-looking actors standing around in blurry CGI settings
Even before the new film was screened to critics, though, there was a sense that Moana was running low on Disney’s signature magic. The first grumblings were heard as soon as the project was officially unveiled by Johnson in April 2023. Tim Robey, film critic for The Telegraph and author of Box Office Poison: Hollywood‘s History in a Century of Flops, notes that some of the hostility directed at it has included a bigoted element. “The live-action Disney remakes focused on female, non-white main characters – look at The Little Mermaid – have a habit of doing particularly badly, and being bullied online more than the ones with boy heroes,” he says. But there have been plenty of other non-political reasons for all the Moana moaning too.
For one thing, the cartoon came out just a decade ago in 2016, so it’s not as if anyone was crying out for the new film. One selling point of Disney’s remakes is nostalgia. But there simply hasn’t been enough time for anyone to feel nostalgic about Moana
That particular issue became even more pressing early in 2024, when Disney announced that a nearly-finished Moana television series wouldn’t be shown on Disney+, after all, but rejigged as a feature film with a cinema release. This proved to be a financially savvy decision. Moana 2, which came out in November 2024, was the third-highest-grossing film of the year, raking in just over $1bn (£784m) worldwide. But it made the live-action Moana seem a lot less like a momentous event
For Disney to release a remake of the first film straight after the sequel feels like such a production-line decision – Tim Robey
“I feel like [the remake] is just too soon after Moana 2,” says Tim Robey. “People didn’t particularly like [Moana 2], and thought it was a kind of cash-in. So for Disney to release a remake of the first film straight afterwards, it felt like such a production-line decision.” The sequel also confused potential audiences about what was going on with the franchise. One common comment beneath trailers for the live-action Moana is: Didn’t this come out already?
What’s more, the prospect of seeing Johnson on screen as Maui, the character he voiced in both of the cartoons, has lost some of its attraction. In 2021, Johnson was a box-office colossus who was talked of as a future US president. But his subsequent succession of flops – Jungle Cruise (2021), Black Adam (2022), Red One (2024), The Smashing Machine (2025) – shows that his gleaming grin and boulder-like pecs aren’t enough to sell tickets anymore
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As for his co-star, the initial rumour was that the actress who voiced Moana in the cartoons, Auli’i Cravalho, would play the title role again on screen. But Cravalho confirmed in May 2023 that she would be stepping aside to let a younger actress take over. Her decision was well received, and Cravalho’s successor, Catherine Laga’aia, is well cast, but some of the live-action film’s unique appeal was diluted. The intriguing Johnson-Cravalho reunion wasn’t going to happen
The problem with its visuals
The trailers dampened enthusiasm, too. There were CGI monsters, CGI animals and CGI waves – all of which suggested that much of the live-action film was essentially going to be an animated film. “It seems like audiences are growing restless with sloppy-looking CGI as a half-measure,” Kyle Meikle, author of The Live-Action Animated Film, and Associate Professor of English and Communication at the University of Baltimore, tells the BBC
Films should either fully commit to computer animation, as in Toy Story 5 or Minions & Monsters, or go practical witih their effects – Kyle Meikle
“This summer, practical effects have ruled: Backrooms, Obsession – heck, even The Devil Wears Prada 2andMichael [have limited digital trickery]. And now I’m seeing Christopher Nolan talking up The Odyssey’s practical effects in the press. Compare that with Supergirl’s reception, or audiences’ distaste for the dismal, half-CGI Masters of the Universe. Either fully commit to computer animation, as in Toy Story 5or Minions & Monsters, or go practical.”
Maybe the reliance on CGI was inevitable, given that Moana features so many supernatural creatures. But the result is that the digitally rendered creatures in the new film are more or less identical to the digitally rendered creatures in the 2016 cartoon. And, crucially, it’s all too easy for people to make that comparison
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The original Moana is so fresh in its fans’ minds, and so frequently rewatched on Disney+, that commenters kept pointing out the same punchlines, the same character designs, and the same camera angles in the trailers. Instead of anticipating a fabulous reinvention of a beloved film, they complained that they were being offered a faded photocopy. And as it transpires, that is pretty much what they’re getting
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Disney’s executives probably aren’t worried: for every one of the studio’s live-action remakes that sinks without trace, there’s another one that triumphs. The Little Mermaid flopped in 2023, whereas Mufasa: The Lion King (a prequel to the photorealistic remake of the 1994 animated classic) was a huge hit in 2024. Last year, Snow White bombed so badly that Disney lost $170m, whereas Lilo & Stitch (one of the biggest films of 2025) made them $1bn
It’s no wonder that remakes of Tangled and Hercules are being planned, along with a sequel to the live-action Lilo & Stitch. But Moana is an example of how careful Disney should be. Each of their remakes has to feel comfortingly familiar yet excitingly new. The it, but not so recent that they know it off by heart. And if the wigs aren’t right, then they should scrap the whole enterprise and start again
Moana is released in cinemas on 10 July
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