Disney’s live-action remake of Moana seems to be on track to a disappointing opening, with one of the lowest takes for a live-action Disney adaptation on opening weekend. And the reviews are just as bad.
The film, set to open on July 10, faces some long odds to success, according to the tracking services, Variety says.
Moana may only bring in as much as $65 million from the 3,875 theaters it will open in on Friday. And some trackers say it will only earn $40 million., “which would be catastrophic” since the movie ended with a huge $250 million budget, the paper adds.
Overseas markets look a bit better with perhaps upwards to a $75 million opening at the international box office.
Indeed, this Moana remake looks to be the worst opening for a Disney remake ever.
For instance, The Little Mermaid brought in $186M, Lilo & Stitch earned $341.7M, and Aladdin made $207M.
Even worse for this film, the animated Moana 2 opened to $139 million in 2024 and earned one billion world-wide by the time it left theaters.
Still, despite the low opening, this film seems on track to earning a bit more than the opening of the original Moana back in 2016, which grossed $56.6 million over its opening weekend at the time.
The live-action remake directed by Thomas Kai (Hamilton) and starring new comer Catherine Laga’aia in the title role and Dwayne Johnson as Maui, seems on track to becoming a bomb for Disney as bad as James Gunn’s Supergirl is for Warner Bros.
The bad box office projections seem to be lining up with the bad reviews of the film, too.
The film has a low, low 32 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Like many, the review by Discussing Films was not kind.
The site says that this shot-for-shot remake of the animated version “stands out as one of the ugliest films of the year.”
“The cinematography is washed out and dull,” the site adds, “even when it is simply attempting to capture the beauty of Motunui, shot on location in Hawaii. It gets much worse once Moana sails off into the open ocean, as all sense of physicality and space is lost. The vibrant and beautiful set pieces from the original animated movie become a clutter of computer-generated visual noise.”
The review goes on to rip director Kail and expressing surprise that he made a movie “with so little sense of identity.” And things go downhill from there. The film “lacks propulsive energy,” the actors “look bored,” and Dwayne Johnson’s delivery seems “flat” even though he was the same actor who voiced the original character in the wildly popular animated film.
No portion of the film is spared and even insists that “Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s iconic songs and ballads also suffer from this feeling of apathy.”
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