In “Moana,” the Polynesian heroine sings about the gravitational pull she feels to return to the water. Disney, the studio behind the live-action remake of the 2016 animated musical, might have been wise to ignore the impulse to go back to the sea … at least so soon.
Arriving a decade after the original and just two years after the animated sequel, “Moana” opened far below expectations with $43 million in North America and $95 million globally. It’s a terrible start for a movie that cost a staggering $250 million to produce and roughly $120 million more to promote. Unless ticket sales can rebound, “Moana” could be a costly lesson as Disney runs low on properties to revisit.
“Disney’s strategy is dependent on whether audiences see the remake as an event or a duplicate,” says analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. “This was the latter. People wanted ‘Moana 3,’ not a remake of the original.”
The studio, which pioneered the modern trend of live-action remakes, has already cycled through much of its animated library, having reimagined or spun off “Cinderella,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan,” “Dumbo,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Lady and the Tramp.” Without much left in the vault to raid, Disney has begun updating properties from this century, with “Moana” being the most recent to get the real-life treatment.
