Moana’s live-action sequel failed to win over critics and audiences when it swam onto our screens earlier this year, and one Disney boss thinks they know why.
Disney president and chief creative officer Dana Walden thinks the issue came from the Moana sequel being released too close to the live-action remake. “It’s so competitive right now that you have to have, the right film at the right time, with audiences feeling a certain degree of demand,” she told Bloomberg’s Screentime, per Variety.
“I would say our live-action Moana, which is excellent, I think it was hurt by the proximity to our second animated version of Moana, which came together under unusual circumstances, but premiered about 18 months before this one. So perhaps there was not enough time to create a lot of pent-up demand for another film.”
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Moana’s sequel arrived in 2024, and while it wasn’t a huge hit with critics, it did very well at the box office. It hit over $1 billion at the box office by the end of its run, topping the original movies $643 million.
Meanwhile, the live-action Moana, which starred Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as Maui once again, only managed $323 million. It still beat its large production budget, but was in no way as successful as its predecessors.
The movie only scored 33% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who argued it suffered a similar problem to other live-action remakes, by being too close to the original. Audiences were much more kind, landing it an 88% audience score.
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