If there is one thing that Disney seems to love these days, it's remakes of some of their most beloved animated original films. In the last decade and change, Disney has turned to its rich library of animated classics for inspiration to drive profits at the box office.
This approach has fared rather well for Disney overall, with many of its live-action remakes making bank at the box office. In fact, just last summer, the live-action Lilo & Stitch remake became a massive success for Disney, grossing over $1 billion at the worldwide box office and making history as the biggest Memorial Day weekend opening of all time.
Disney was hoping to create similar success with this July’s Moana, a remake of the 2016 animated film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Auli'i Cravalho. The film brought Johnson back in the role of demigod Maui, while Catherine Laga'aia took over the role of the title character as the new Moana to help bring the character to a new generation of moviegoers.
Although Disney had high expectations for Moana, the live-action adaptation of its beloved 2016 animated original did not wow at the box office. In fact, it made history for the franchise and not the good kind of history.
Moana had the worst opening for a Moana film
Despite a strong promotional campaign from Disney, Moana failed to make a splash at the box office and saw the lowest opening weekend for any of the Moana films. Over the course of its opening weekend, Moana (2026) made a mere $43.1 million at the domestic box office, which is 13 million less than what the first film in the franchise made back in 2016 during its opening weekend and less than a third of Moana 2’s opening weekend total in 2024.
Sadly, the film did not fare any better when you factor in the worldwide box office totals and brought in a franchise-worst domestic opening. Moana (2026) opened to $95.1 million globally, which was down sharply from the $389 million Moana 2 made at the global box office. It was also just shy of the opening weekend total for Moana, which opened to $97.4 million worldwide.
While a global opening of $95.1 million might be cause for celebration for many franchises, that opening total puts the film on pace to lose Disney between $100-$125 million. This is due in large part to the film’s heftier budget, with the live-action Moana reported to have cost Disney $250 million to make versus the $150 million invested in the first and second animated films.
Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t stop at Moana (2026) making box office history by becoming the lowest-grossing film in the Moana franchise. In addition to a franchise-worst opening, Moana had one of the lowest opening weekends ever for a Disney live-action remake. To put that number into perspective, here are the top opening weekend totals for the live-action Disney remakes from the modern era:
- The Lion King (2019) - $191,770,759
- Beauty and the Beast (2017) - $174,750,616
- Lilo & Stitch (2025) - $146,016,175
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) - $116,101,023
- The Jungle Book (2016) - $103,261,464
- The Little Mermaid (2023) - $95,578,040
- Aladdin (2019) - $91,500,929
- Cinderella (2015) - $67,877,361
- Dumbo (2019) - $45,990,748
- Moana (2026) - $43,142,824
- Snow White (2025) - $42,206,415
- Pete’s Dragon (2016) - $21,514,095
(Note: this list only includes direct remakes rather than sequels and original spins on classics such as Mufasa, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Maleficent, Cruella, and Christopher Robin.)
Depending on how the film fares during its run, Moana (2026) could become one of the lowest-grossing Disney live-action remakes ever, which is certainly unfortunate. Disney definitely gets a lot of blame for the film's poor box office performance.
The film was released less than two years after Moana 2 hit theaters and opened during a very busy time for family films. Rather than dropping the film at a time when there was less competition, Disney released the film just two weeks after Toy Story 5 hit theaters and just a week after Minions and Monsters.
It would have been much smarter to release the film over Memorial Day weekend as was done with Lilo & Stitch or hold the film for Thanksgiving, which was when Moana 2 opened. Hopefully, the film will see a rise as summer continues, but the low opening for the film is certainly concerning and does not bode well for Disney. The silver lining is the film is sure to become a hit upon its Disney+ release later this year!
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