The time has come once again for the return of the internet’s favorite cinematic punching bag: Disney remakes. From “Cinderella” to “Lilo & Stitch,” only a precious few of the live-action/CGI takes on the studio’s animated canon have avoided widespread online revulsion, and this weekend’s remake of “Moana” is unlikely to be one of those rarities.
The question is whether this remake, which sees Dwayne Johnson once again play the demigod Maui opposite Catherine Laga’aia as Moana, can build a box office run closer to the $1 billion-plus runs of remakes like “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” or last year’s “Lilo & Stitch” earned in spite of that furor or if it will perform closer to disappointments like the $569 million-grossing remake of “The Little Mermaid” or even outright bombs like last year’s $205 million-grossing “Snow White.”
The pre-release tracking suggests the latter. Box office projections for “Moana” point towards a $70-75 million domestic opening weekend while Disney is projecting an opening in the $60 million range.
If it hits those studio projections, “Moana” would open in the vicinity of Disney’s 2015 “Cinderella” remake, which opened to $67.8 million before inflation adjustment and went on to gross $542.3 million worldwide. But theatrical sources tell TheWrap that based on their internal presales, they expect an even lower opening.
“Moana” is hitting theaters at a time when families have plenty of options, including fellow Disney release “Toy Story 5,” which passed $750 million worldwide on its third Sunday, and Universal’s “Minions & Monsters,” which opened to a franchise-low $62 million extended domestic launch.
The hope for Disney, according to studio insiders, is that the remake’s spot on the release calendar plays to its advantage. Next week’s big release is Universal’s adult-skewing “The Odyssey,” and with Sony/Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” coming at the end of the month, studios are steering completely clear of the July 24 weekend slot to avoid having their films get swallowed up by the pair of highly anticipated blockbusters which, coincidentally, both star Tom Holland and Zendaya.
That gives “Moana” three weeks before it faces any significant new competition for parents and kids, and if word-of-mouth among families is as strong as it was for “Lilo & Stitch,” then the movie might be able to leg out and post a modest profit against its tentpole $200 million budget, even if a run on the level of “Lilo” is very unlikely with the current level of pre-release interest.
But if the buzz among families isn’t as enthusiastic, then audiences will have sent a clear message that there is indeed such a thing as too much “Moana.” That’s slightly ironic considering that this remake was first announced by Johnson in April 2023, roughly nine months before Disney announced that it was turning its planned streaming series follow-up to the original 2016 film into a full-fledged theatrical sequel.
“Moana 2,” of course, went on to set a Thanksgiving record $225.4 million 5-day opening in November 2024 and grossed $1.05 billion worldwide, capitalizing off of the original film’s status as the most watched title of all time on Disney+ thanks in good part to countless rewatches by kids stuck in the house during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Combine that with billions more in merch sales and theme park revenue, and “Moana” has risen alongside “Frozen” and “Zootopia” to become the crown jewels of Walt Disney Animation’s 2010s box office dominance.
But the formula of success for “Moana” isn’t the same as for the Disney remakes that have become hits. Those remakes either offered something visually striking and new, like Jon Favreau’s photorealistic, $1 billion-plus “Jungle Book” remake a decade ago, or were based on Disney classics that came out 20-25 years ago, the sweet spot of nostalgia that made remakes of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Lilo & Stitch” perfectly timed. Sometimes that gap between original and remake can be as short as 16 years and still be successful, as DreamWorks’ 2025 remake of “How to Train Your Dragon” proved.
“Moana,” however, has a 10-year-gap, and that may prove to be too short for audiences to build an appetite for a remake, especially given that much of the core audience for this movie just saw a “Moana” film 20 months ago.
Father Time played a role in that shorter gap. One of the key selling points of this remake is seeing Dwayne Johnson go from playing Maui in a recording booth to playing him in front of a camera. And while the 54-year-old former WWE star is known for his weightlifting regimen, the demigod is a role he’d probably age out of in another 10 years, at least as far as live action is concerned.
With Johnson also announcing this week that an animated “Moana 3” is in development, this series is very much an active part of Disney’s franchise rotation in a way that “Lilo & Stitch” was not before last year’s remake. The excitement for more “Moana” in theaters built up by the original’s streaming popularity may have already been spent in 2024, leaving little behind for this remake.
Also opening this weekend is Warner Bros./New Line’s “Evil Dead Burn,” the latest installment in the ultra-gory, deadite-filled horror series launched 45 years ago by Sam Raimi, who returns as a producer for this film.
A sequel to the 2023 reboot “Evil Dead Rise,” “Burn” is projected for an opening weekend of $13-17 million, down from the $24.5 million opening of “Rise” but should still be enough to allow the film to gross a modest theatrical profit against its reported $20 million budget.
On the indie side, a pair of Sundance films will be released nationwide: A24’s “The Invite” and Sony Pictures Classics’ “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” both of which are projected to earn less than $5 million this weekend.
“The Invite,” which is directed by and stars Olivia Wilde alongside Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, has made $1.35 million in limited release and has Rotten Tomatoes scores of 96% critics and 91% audience. It expands to approximately 1,600 locations this weekend, and the studio is plotting an awards season push.
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” stars Zoey Deutch in a gag-filled comedy about a young woman who, after discovering that her boyfriend had sex with his celebrity crush, decides to even the score by traveling to Los Angeles to have sex with her celebrity crush, Jon Hamm. The film has an 82% RT score and will be released in approximately 1,200 locations.
