Disney's live-action Moana is opening this week with the kind of box-office forecast that invites trouble before the first ticket is sold. Cinema tracking specialists put the film's US debut at between $50m and $85m, a range that would leave it below the kind of launch Disney usually wants from one of its biggest remakes.
That is why people are searching for Moana 2026 now: the movie is not arriving as a quiet experiment but as a marquee Disney release being judged in public before release. The original Moana came out in 2016, and the remake is reaching cinemas with a lot less of the built-in nostalgia that can lift these projects, even as Disney continues to lean on familiar titles to carry its live-action slate.
The criticism started early and has not really stopped. The trailer went online in March, and one of the first things viewers seized on was Dwayne Johnson wearing a long, curly wig. Weird Al Yankovic then added to the joke, posting a photo of Johnson on Instagram with a caption that compared him to a Weird Al biopic sequel that was, he said, still on hold while casting agents kept sending headshots. The reaction was broad enough that the film began to look less like a family event than a punchline.
There is also a cleaner commercial reason for the pessimism. The predicted opening range is less than half of what Lilo & Stitch earned in the same period a year ago, and that comparison matters because Disney remakes are often measured against whatever the studio most recently turned into a hit. In early 2024, Disney had already changed course on a nearly-finished Moana television series, moving it away from Disney+ and into a feature-film release for cinemas, a switch that underlined how much the company wanted the title to play on the biggest possible stage.
But the timing now cuts the other way. Moana 2 arrived in November 2024 and became the third-highest-grossing film of the year, finishing with just over $1bn worldwide. That success should have made the property stronger, yet it has instead sharpened the sense that the live-action remake is arriving too soon after the animated sequel and too close to the original film itself to feel necessary. A critic in the put it bluntly, saying the remake was too soon after Moana 2 and arguing that live-action Disney remakes centered on female, non-white leads, such as The Little Mermaid, have often been hit harder online and in theaters than comparable boy-led titles.
Disney officially unveiled the project in April 2023, but the real test is now. If the film lands near the low end of tracking, it will deepen the case that this is one Disney remake the public never quite wanted back. If it breaks out, it will do so against a wave of skepticism that has already made the opening weekend part of the story before the weekend itself begins.
