Disney's live-action Moana reached theaters on July 10, and by Sunday morning the conversation had already shifted from "how big" to "how bad." The studio's remake of its own 2016 animated hit — the one that turned a Polynesian wayfinding story into a billion-dollar franchise — landed with an opening weekend far below what a $250 million production is supposed to deliver. For a company that has spent a decade converting its animation library into live-action tentpoles, this one lands differently.
What Happened
Tracking had the film opening somewhere near $130 million globally, with domestic estimates in the $60 million range. What actually arrived was smaller. Moana took in roughly $4.5 million in Thursday previews and about $18 million on opening day, and by the weekend Deadline was reporting a domestic three-day figure in the $42–46 million range. That is below the $56 million the original animated Moana managed in its 2016 debut, and it is a fraction of what Moana 2 pulled in 2024, when the animated sequel opened to roughly $225 million over the five-day Thanksgiving frame on its way past $1 billion worldwide.
The film stars newcomer Catherine Laga’aia in the title role, with Dwayne Johnson returning as the demigod Maui — this time in the flesh rather than as a voice performance. Veteran Māori actor Rena Owen also appears, and several reviewers singled out both Laga’aia and Owen as the strongest things on screen. The casting was never really the problem. The film opened alongside horror release Evil Dead Burn, which did solid business but was never going to be the reason a Disney tentpole missed by this much.
The $250 million budget is the number that reframes everything else. A film at that cost needs to clear roughly $600 million worldwide before it starts looking like a success, and an opening in the mid-$40 millions does not put it on that path unless word of mouth carries it through the rest of July — a July that ends with Spider-Man: Brand New Day arriving on the 31st and taking most of the oxygen with it.
Why It Matters
Disney's live-action remake program has been one of the most reliable money-printing operations in modern Hollywood. The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin — each took a beloved animated property, added photorealism and a bigger marketing budget, and converted nostalgia into ticket sales with almost mechanical consistency. The strategy worked precisely because it did not require anyone to take a creative risk.
That machine has been sputtering. Snow White underperformed badly in 2025, and Moana's opening now sits uncomfortably close to it. The pattern is worth paying attention to, because Moana should have been the easiest sell in the entire pipeline: the animated original is less than a decade old, the sequel was a billion-dollar hit eighteen months ago, and the brand is genuinely global. If a remake with those tailwinds cannot open, the problem is probably not this particular film. It is the premise.
The uncomfortable question inside Burbank is whether audiences have finally worked out that they can simply watch the original. When the animated version is a click away on Disney+, is available in 4K, and is widely regarded as better, the live-action remake has to justify itself with something more than higher resolution. Most of the recent ones have not tried.
Reaction
Critics were unusually direct. The film's Rotten Tomatoes score settled in the mid-30s — among the lowest for any Disney live-action remake, below even the ones usually cited as the low-water marks of the format. Digital Spy called it "the most pointless Disney live-action remake yet." The Associated Press's Jake Coyle described it as a "purposeless remake." The recurring criticism was not that the film is incompetent but that it is inert: a near shot-for-shot recreation with flatter visuals and less charm than the thing it is copying.
Not everyone agreed. Variety's Owen Gleiberman was a notable outlier, arguing it is the best of Disney's live-action remakes and the one that actually escapes the format's usual malaise. Alonso Duralde at The Film Verdict praised Laga’aia's performance directly. So the critical consensus, while lopsided, was not unanimous.
And the audience split from the critics almost entirely. Opening-night moviegoers gave the film an A- CinemaScore. Women graded it an A. The under-18 crowd gave it an A+. That gap — a critics' score in the 30s against an A- from paying customers — is the most interesting data point of the weekend, and it is the one thing standing between Moana and a total write-off. Films with that kind of audience score often hold well in their second and third weekends, particularly family films in summer.
What's Next
The next two weekends will decide whether this is a disappointment or a disaster. Family films frequently have long legs; a strong CinemaScore and school holidays are a real combination, and if Moana drops only 35–40% in weekend two, Disney will start telling a very different story about it. If it drops 55%, the conversation moves to write-downs.
The larger point is that Moana as a property is not in trouble — the film is. The character anchors theme park attractions, merchandise lines, and a franchise that has already produced a billion-dollar sequel. Disney has more animated properties queued for the live-action treatment, and the interesting decision is not what happens to this movie but whether anyone at the studio now reconsiders that slate. A remake underperforming is survivable. A remake underperforming because audiences have decided the whole category is redundant is a strategy problem.
Closing Thoughts
There is something a little pointed about Moana, of all films, being the one that exposes the limits of the remake formula. The original is a story about a young woman who refuses to stay inside the reef her elders drew for her — who goes out past the safe water because the safe water is not where anything happens. The 2016 film built its entire emotional architecture on the value of leaving the known behind.
The 2026 version, by most accounts, does the opposite. It stays inside the reef. It repeats what worked, frame for frame, and hopes that repetition is enough. The audiences who showed up gave it an A-, and that matters — a lot of people had a perfectly good time. But the critics who called it purposeless were reaching for something real: a film about the courage to go somewhere new, made by a process explicitly designed not to. Whether Disney reads the weekend that way is another question entirely.
한글 요약
디즈니의 실사판 <모아나>가 7월 10일 개봉했지만 성적은 기대에 크게 못 미쳤습니다. 사전 예측은 전 세계 오프닝 1억 3천만 달러 수준이었으나, 실제 북미 개봉 주말 성적은 4,200만~4,600만 달러 선에 머물렀습니다. 2016년 애니메이션 원작의 첫 주말 5,600만 달러보다도 낮고, 10억 달러를 넘긴 2024년 <모아나 2>와는 비교조차 어려운 수치입니다. 제작비가 2억 5천만 달러라는 점을 감안하면 상당히 부담스러운 출발입니다.
평단의 반응은 냉담했습니다. 로튼토마토 지수는 30% 중반대로, 디즈니 실사 리메이크 중에서도 최하위권입니다. "가장 무의미한 리메이크"라는 혹평이 반복됐고, 원작을 거의 그대로 옮기면서 매력만 잃었다는 지적이 주를 이뤘습니다. 다만 신인 캐서린 라가아이아와 레나 오웬의 연기, 그리고 버라이어티의 오웬 글레이버먼처럼 "역대 최고의 디즈니 실사 리메이크"라 평한 소수 의견도 있었습니다.
흥미로운 건 관객 반응이 정반대라는 점입니다. 개봉일 관객 시네마스코어는 A-, 여성 관객은 A, 18세 미만은 A+를 줬습니다. 평단과 관객의 이 간극이 향후 2~3주 흥행 지속력을 가를 변수입니다. 가족 영화 특성상 입소문이 붙으면 낙폭이 작을 수 있지만, 7월 31일 <스파이더맨: 브랜드 뉴 데이>가 개봉하면 상영관 확보가 급격히 어려워집니다. 디즈니로서는 개별 작품의 실패보다, 관객이 실사 리메이크라는 형식 자체에 흥미를 잃은 것은 아닌지가 더 큰 숙제입니다.
참고: Deadline · Variety · Rotten Tomatoes