Disney faces losing more than 100 million dollars with Moana because it has not been able to read the signs of an announced failure

Unlike another similar film with comparable results, ‘Snow White’, ‘Moana’ has neither a controversial actress, nor a cultural war behind it, nor a disastrous trailer to blame for a gross of just $95 million in its world premiere. Against a budget of 250to which we must add marketing expenses that could reach 145 million additional. We are facing one of the Disney’s biggest box office blows in recent times, and one that can put in check one of the company’s most profitable strategies.

What there is to lose. With those numbers on the table, it is projected that Disney could lose between 100 and 125 million dollars in the theatrical exploitation of ‘Moana’, and that is assuming it manages to gross 250 million worldwide before closing its run in theaters. Not exactly a small disaster for a company that has just experienced a big disappointment with the weak collections for ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’.

It looked good. The fact is that ‘Moana’ started with very flattering expectations for the company: A- in CinemaScore, between 90% and 91% of the public in Rotten Tomatoes which has finally dropped to 89%, a 63% “definitive” recommendation according to PostTrak… Critics, on the other hand, have sunk it with just 31% on Rotten Tomatoes for considering it, basically, a shot-by-shot carbon copy of the 2016 animated version. It is one of the most pronounced gaps between critics and the public of the summer, but it is not a completely unusual phenomenon. Who is to blame then?

The success of ‘Moana’ and other problems. As we told a few days ago, the original animated film of ‘Moana’ is the most watched movie in the history of Disney+with more than 1.5 billion hours played. ‘Moana 2’, released in November 2024 after being converted from a series planned for streaming, broke the Thanksgiving premiere record with 225 million in five days and ended up surpassing 1 billion worldwide.

And there may be a reason for the failure: families had seen ‘Vaiana 2’ less than two years ago and were certain that this version, clearly derivative, would soon arrive on Disney+ (and it could have been worse: when Disney announced ‘Vaiana 2’, it delayed the release of this live-action version by a year so that there would be at least two years between the two). In addition, the premiere occurred on a particularly competitive weekend: Disney itself had ‘Toy Story 5’ in theaters, and there was also ‘Minions & Monsters’. Competition everywhere: Disney’s own streaming offering, traditional rivals and a sequel that was still fresh.

Little time. Some media point because nostalgia is the real driving force behind Disney’s most profitable remakes, and Moana arrived too early to activate it. ‘Lilo & Stitch’ It raised more than 1,000 million with a hiatus of more than twenty years compared to the 2002 original, but ‘Moana’ has tried to repeat the formula with only a decade in between and a recent sequel competing for the same audience. Disney opted for a property that did not yet need a relaunch and that the public did not demand with such urgency.

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