{"id":798632,"date":"2026-07-14T00:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798632\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:32:12","slug":"3-key-reasons-moana-flopped-at-the-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798632\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Key Reasons ‘Moana’ Flopped at the Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Moana” bellyflopped in its box-office debut, and the miss should provide Disney film executives with some hard-earned lessons.<\/p>\n

Disney’s new live-action remake about the uber-popular Polynesian princess failed to bring audiences aboard, with a $43 million domestic opening that was only slightly above the disastrous start for the “Snow White” remake<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

“‘Moana’s’ performance this weekend certainly has everyone questioning the animation-to-live-action strategy often employed by Disney,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at media research firm Rentrak.<\/p>\n

The Mouse House has used sequels and remakes<\/a> as an easy, low-risk way to generate tons of cash, though a flop for one of its most popular movies means this strategy may be losing luster<\/a> with fans.<\/p>\n

“Disney invented this live-action phenomenon based on their animated films, and they’ve had remarkable success with them,” said box-office analyst David Gross in a Sunday report. “But this opening isn’t close to Disney’s past remakes.”<\/p>\n

Unlike the ill-fated “Snow White” adaptation<\/a>, this “Moana” movie had no notable controversies, and it didn’t make polarizing creative choices like last May’s successful “Lilo & Stitch” remake<\/a> (which brought in over $182 million in the US in its debut).<\/p>\n

Here are the three key reasons “Moana” sank in its box-office opening weekend, according to analysts.<\/p>\n

1. It’s all too familiar<\/p>\n

The new “Moana” is “an almost shot-for-shot (and line-for-line, in some cases) remake of a five-star masterpiece,” Business Insider’s Gabbi Shaw wrote in a review of the live-action remake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By mimicking the original “Moana,” Disney avoided angering audiences who might not have wanted to see major changes to the hit. But by declining to reimagine “Moana,” the live-action remake may not have excited fans either.<\/p>\n

“The central conundrum with all of these remakes,” Shaw wrote in her review, is that Disney fans or parents with Moana-crazed kids could have simply put on the “superior animated film” instead of bringing the whole family to a theater.<\/p>\n

Though controversy-free, the new “Moana” movie was something that “nobody was talking about, for better or worse,” said box-office analyst Scott Mendelson.<\/p>\n

2. Too much ‘Moana’<\/p>\n

Disney may have given audiences another “Moana” movie too soon.<\/p>\n

The original animated film came out 10 years ago, and Disney struck gold with a billion-dollar “Moana 2” sequel in 2024.<\/p>\n

Although the “Moana” movies are beloved, as they consistently rank among the most-watched films on streaming, kids may already be getting their fix of the princess from the comfort of their couch.<\/p>\n

“This story wasn’t ready to come back, and audiences are not rushing to see it,” Gross said.<\/p>\n

Analyst Shawn Robbins, the director of movie analytics at Fandango, said the timing of this “Moana” film missed the sweet spot.<\/p>\n

“This live-action take arrived at least half a decade too early if the goal was for the box office to benefit from nostalgia and a generational hand-me-down to kids who didn’t see the original film in theaters or weren’t born yet,” Robbins said.<\/p>\n

3. It faced stiff competition, including friendly fire<\/p>\n

Another factor in the “Moana” remake’s slow start was that there are plenty of family-friendly films in theaters right now.<\/p>\n

“The marketplace is a bit oversaturated with PG-rated family fare,” Dergarabedian said.<\/p>\n

Disney decided to release the new “Moana” three weeks after its own smash-hit “Toy Story 5” and a week after “Minions & Monsters” from Universal, though that film has so far slightly underwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Those films and the World Cup may have kept audiences elsewhere, Robbins remarked.<\/p>\n

However, seeing movies isn’t always a zero-sum game. Mendelson said that family-friendly hits can spur rival movies, since kids see trailers in theaters and get excited.<\/p>\n

“If people had wanted to see ‘Moana,’ they would have seen ‘Moana,'” Mendelson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Moana” bellyflopped in its box-office debut, and the miss should provide Disney film executives with some hard-earned lessons.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,35070,63,375088,1548,437,134,1689,375090,375091,375089,116476,375086,15460,344,375087,375085,57288,39947],"class_list":["post-798632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-audience","tag-australia","tag-box-office-debut","tag-business-insider","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-gabbi-shaw","tag-live-action-phenomenon","tag-marketplace-trend","tag-moana","tag-moana-crazed-kid","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-new-live-action-remake","tag-past-remake","tag-snow-white","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}