It paid off.
Not that it was ever really much of a financial gamble, as The Walt Disney Company’s pressing need for a surefire box office home run was the primary reason why Moana 2 hit theaters in late November in the form in which it did. The film’s production history has been well-publicized and is not without controversy; following the underwhelming box office takes of Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023), Disney felt internal pressure to rush a recognizable intellectual property back into theaters as quickly as possible, believing that leaning on a demonstrably successful brand would allow the company to wade through what had been recently treacherous waters at its bread-and-butter animation studio.
With Zootopia and Frozen follow-ups in development but not viable candidates for a 2024 release, Disney opted to rework a previously announced Moana streaming series into its next theatrical venture. From the surface, it seemed like a shrewd business maneuver; yearning for a ‘guaranteed’ hit, Disney managed to manufacture a makeshift sequel to a 2016 critical and commercial triumph that’s stood the test of (albeit recent) time to the tune of consistently remarkable streaming numbers.
Announced in February for a November release, immediate questions regarding the film’s eventual quality were raised; that said, few had doubts about Moana 2’s box office feasibility.
Its Thanksgiving release window ultimately arrived, and both qualitative and financial expectations proved to be in the proper ballparks. Moana 2 received mixed critical reviews, with Walt Disney Animation Studios’ latest effort currently sitting at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes (a 32% drop from its beloved predecessor); the sequel has been a runaway box office smash, however, earning a record-breaking $225 million at the domestic box office through its five-day opening weekend (with a three-day total of $139.7 million). The film has already earned north of $420 million worldwide and looks set to be Disney’s third $1 billion grosser of the year, this against a reported pre-marketing budget of $150 million.
Moana 2 is the financial tour de force that most expected it would be, a rejuvenating effort from an iconic animation studio that had seen its last few endeavors disregarded en masse.
So why does its success leave one feeling so… ambivalent? Hollow? Why is the film’s objective resonance breeding any emotions other than unbridled optimism about the future of Walt Disney Animation Studios and the company, as a whole?
It’s because of the cynical way in which the film came to be. Disney did not rework its Moana streaming series into a theatrical release out of some sort of artistic obligation to tell the masses an emotionally pertinent story — it did so to make money. Turning a profit is ultimately the goal of every studio with regard to every movie it produces, but Disney did little to hide its proverbial hand here; the company that has made such medium-defining and generationally enduring films as Fantasia, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King tweaked a television show into a movie in roughly one year’s time because it was feeling financially strained.
Moana 2’s box office triumph leaves Disney at a pivotal crossroads, as the lesson it learns from its success may come to define the company — or at least its primary animation studio — in the immediate future. Should it view the financial performance for what it was — a desperate, but ultimately successful, swing at a box office hit that likely cannot, and should not, be replicated — then operations at the Mouse House likely won’t be altered too much moving forward. If the company interprets Moana 2’s success as indicative of a trend, however, as indication that audiences will pay for a haphazardly constructed — and generally lesser — product as long as it’s attached to a recognizable IP, then there’s potential for Walt Disney Animation Studios to soon bear little resemblance to the cherished studio of old.
The company’s latest release is not only unique in that it’s essentially held together by Elmer’s glue, but it’s also Walt Disney Animation Studios’ first film not to be produced in-house. Animation was primarily executed at the company’s Vancouver studio (where it started production as a series), and though the quality of animation in Moana 2 is not necessarily poor, there’s a discernible difference between this film and the standard Disney release, especially with regard to nuances. Handling the bulk of the animation outside of Burbank, while a consequence of the late pivot, aided in allowing the company to keep the production’s budget level with — if not less than — that of the first film, maximizing its profit margin.
Also keeping the budget comparatively constrained was the absence of crucial creatives who were imperative to the first film’s success, namely the directing duo of John Musker and Ron Clements and songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. Their omissions are sorely felt in the movie, and while their lack of involvement can, again, be attributed to the fact that Moana 2 was a Disney+ series just a short time ago, the film’s triumph despite its creative turnover may lead the company to deduce that audiences aren’t overly concerned with quality.
Moana 2 isn’t a traditionally bad movie, but it’s merely an adequate follow-up to a film that has quickly cemented itself as one of the more venerated in the Walt Disney Animation Studios canon. That said, one can easily envision a world where Disney looks at the box office total of its latest release and concludes that it no longer needs to produce the bulk of its animation in-house or keep the creatives who made these characters and stories so esteemed in the first place attached to their IPs; just slap together a movie utilizing a recognizable brand, get it into theaters during a favorable release window, and profit.
This is a deeply dark and depressing possibility, as it’s not only calamitous from a quality perspective but from a feasibility one, as never again will Disney be presented with the perfect storm of circumstances that led to Moana 2’s financial glory. Desperate after back-to-back films garnered little in the way of public resonance or financial returns, the company just so happened to be developing a streaming follow-up to a recently revered film that it could tweak into a feature in short order.
This is not replicable or sustainable. Disney is not always going to have a television show in the pipeline ripe for a last-second audible. It’s not always going to have a recent property as admired — and bankable — as Moana to fall back on. The box office success of Moana 2 can be primarily attributed to the strength of the first Moana film, an, at the time, original IP that caught on with audiences in a way few franchises, regardless of medium, have in the recent past; should Disney come away from the success of Moana 2 with the new intent of producing constrained-budget (and potentially out-of-house) sequels linked to recognized brands, it will be depriving itself the opportunity to create a film in the vein of Moana in the future.
It’s imperative that Disney views Moana 2’s financial triumph not as an indication of a new M.O., but as a vindication of their past strategies. The company has built itself into a billion-dollar behemoth on the back of trailblazing and medium-pushing animated features, with films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Little Mermaid, and even the aforementioned Moana resonating with generations thanks to their endearing stories, breathtaking visuals, and the meticulous intent in their craft. Moana 2 owes its success to films like this and the cache of audience goodwill Disney has built over the past century; this stockpile, however, is not infinite and needs to be replenished. If the company interprets Moana 2’s success as an indicator that quality is no longer paramount and that shortcuts can be taken at every turn, that buildup of goodwill may diminish faster than anticipated.
Disney has built its legacy by crafting artistic masterworks definitive of the animation medium and reflective of its inherent potential, but should Moana 2’s performance prompt the company to adopt the lightning-in-a-bottle, slapdash, and, frankly, cynical approach that bred the film’s success as a production constant, its future may lie in perennial mediocrity as opposed to masterpieces. It’s a fate Disney can easily avoid by simply learning the proper lesson from Moana 2’s success: it’s a product of the studio’s past excellence, and while it got the company out of a corner that it worked itself into, the film’s existence in its ultimate form should be an outlier and not the norm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios looks set to lean on sequels in the immediate future, with Zootopia 2 and Frozen III on the schedule for 2025 and 2027, respectively (an unannounced original film is scheduled for 2026). Frozen IV is also in development, and given the record-smashing returns generated by Moana 2, another entry in that franchise seems inevitable; this isn’t an inherently bad proposition, as sequels can be just as effective and endearing as their predecessors assuming they’re developed with the same level of care and intent.
Moana 2 was not, and though this hasn’t been reflected in the box office numbers, the sentiment seems prevalent in audience reception. Cutting corners to rush a surefire hit into theaters proved fruitful for Disney in this instance, but the strategy only worked because of the company’s past success; if it makes a habit of taking shortcuts, it may find that it won’t have its own success to fall back on for long.
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Kyle Silagyi is a columnist for the Boardwalk Times
