--- title: 'Disney’s Moana Remake Shows the Limit of Selling the Same Wave Twice' type: 'blog post' section: 'The Argument' format: 'Editorial feature' standfirst: 'The live-action Moana is trailing the 2016 original by a wide margin, and the gap says more than one weak opening weekend. Disney’s remake strategy works best when the new film gives audiences a reason to leave the old one behind.' author: 'CinePixo' published: '2026-08-22' updated: '2026-08-22' about_people: - 'Dwayne Johnson' about_films: - 'Moana (2026)' - 'Moana (2016)' tags: - 'Moana live action box office' - 'Disney remake strategy' - 'Moana 2016 original comparison' - 'Disney live action remake failures' - 'Moana remake Rotten Tomatoes' sources: - 'https://comicbook.com/movies/list/4-disney-live-action-remake-box-office-bombs-that-moana-might-not-even-beat/' - 'https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/as-moana-whiffs-is-disneys-live-action-remake-strategy-dead/ar-AA27Tqdp' - 'https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/moanas-live-action-remake-failed-153113491.html' - 'https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/moana-review-a-live-action-remake-thats-dead-in-the-water-32d1a37f' canonical: 'https://cinepixo.com/blog/disneys-moana-remake-shows-the-limit-of-selling-the-same-wave-twice' publisher: 'CinePixo' --- # Disney’s Moana Remake Shows the Limit of Selling the Same Wave Twice *The live-action Moana is trailing the 2016 original by a wide margin, and the gap says more than one weak opening weekend. Disney’s remake strategy works best when the new film gives audiences a reason to leave the old one behind.* By CinePixo, 2026-08-22 · The Argument ## The Remake Is Already Chasing the Original Disney’s live-action Moana has not landed like the film it is remaking. Yahoo reported on July 13, 2026, that the new version opened with $95 million worldwide against a reported $250 million budget. ComicBook.com later reported on July 29 that it had reached $230 million worldwide. That is not nothing. Most movies would love to have $230 million in the bank. But this is Disney, this is Moana, and the 2016 animated film made $687.2 million globally, according to Yahoo. The comparison is brutal because the remake invites it. It is not asking to be judged as a strange new swing. It is asking viewers to buy another ticket for a story many households have already kept close for ten years. The trouble is not only the money. Yahoo reported that the film was sitting at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, while ComicBook.com described its reviews as weak. The numbers and the reaction point in the same direction: audiences were offered a return trip and a lot of them seem to have decided the first voyage still does the job. ![Dwayne Johnson-1764](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/c7a1cb76-cf5a-4bea-ab79-49cf14da7fc0.webp) *Photo: Harald Krichel · [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dwayne_Johnson-1764.jpg)* ## Ten Years Was Too Soon ComicBook.com’s most useful point is also the most obvious one: the animated Moana is still recent. Disney did not reach back to a half-remembered title from another generation. It went back to a movie many children grew up with and many parents have heard in their living rooms for years. Moana 2 also arrived only a couple of years before the remake, according to ComicBook.com. That matters. Disney had already fed demand for this world. A live-action version then had to answer a harder question: why this, why now, and why in theaters? The answer, judging by the reported response, was not strong enough. ComicBook.com wrote that the remake was mostly shot-for-shot, kept most of the original cast, and added little that felt new. Yahoo cited viewers who called it flat and pointed to an Associated Press review describing it as a “carbon copy” of the animated film. That is where the strategy starts to look thin. Nostalgia is powerful, but it is not the same as desire. A beloved film can be too available, too intact, too good at being itself. The 2016 Moana has color, rhythm, and a musical clarity that live-action realism was always going to have to fight. If the remake’s best pitch is recognition, then the original wins before the lights go down. ![Dwayne johnson (53544402096)](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/c27a3844-9444-406a-957c-8026e6a6232a.webp) ![Dwayne johnson (53544401761)](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/051b8e12-5b08-4577-8eff-ff0da73b25a1.webp) *Photos: Zach Catanzareti Photo · [CC BY 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) · [source 1](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dwayne_johnson_(53544402096).jpg), [source 2](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dwayne_johnson_(53544401761).jpg)* ## Disney’s Remake Math Has Worked Before Disney keeps making these films because some of them have paid off. ComicBook.com named Lilo & Stitch, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Jungle Book as live-action remakes that made a lot of money. The model is not imaginary. It has produced hits. But the failures are starting to form their own pattern. ComicBook.com compared Moana with several underperformers: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Dumbo, The Little Mermaid, and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Those films are not all the same kind of miss. Some were sequels. Some were reworkings. Some had controversy around them; some just did not catch. The useful comparison is what they ask from the audience. Maleficent changed the angle on Sleeping Beauty and made Angelina Jolie’s character the center. ComicBook.com reported that the first film made more than $750 million, while its sequel took in about $490 million and reportedly needed $500 million to profit after budget, advertising, and distribution costs. Alice in Wonderland crossed $1 billion in 2010, according to ComicBook.com, but Alice Through the Looking Glass came in just under $300 million on a $170 million budget. Dumbo made a little over $350 million worldwide on a budget around $170 million. The Little Mermaid reached nearly $600 million, but ComicBook.com wrote that its reported $230 million budget still left it seen as a disappointment. Moana, at $230 million as of ComicBook.com’s July 29 report, is not just behind the original. It is trying to clear the lower rungs of Disney’s remake disappointments. ![Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Visits the Pentagon (41) (cropped)](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/23e62dde-b1e4-4875-8731-8eaea1214f34.webp) ![Dwayne Johnson Daytona 500 8246702](https://pokemon-dive.us-lax-4.linodeobjects.com/cinepixo/posts/2026/08/a82dad75-ed25-4bf8-83ab-4a60d58a200a.webp) *Photos: Henry Villarama · Public domain · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dwayne_%22The_Rock%22_Johnson_Visits_the_Pentagon_(41)_(cropped).jpg); Spc. Casey Brumbach · Public domain · [source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dwayne_Johnson_Daytona_500_8246702.jpg)* ## The Original Still Has the Stronger Case The 2016 Moana did not need live-action faces to make the ocean feel alive. Its animation gave the story its bounce and force. Its songs could move between comedy, longing, and myth without the awkward drag that often hits these remakes when they try to preserve animated timing in a physical world. The live-action film sounds, from the reported reaction, like it trusted affection more than invention. That is a dangerous bet with a movie this young. A remake of a decades-old film can sell the pleasure of renewal. A remake of Moana has to compete with a version that still looks current, still plays cleanly, and still sits right there on Disney+. Yahoo wrote that some viewers questioned the point of remaking it at all. That may be the key phrase. People can forgive a lot when a movie has a point. They can forgive rough effects, uneven songs, even a strange performance choice. What is harder to forgive is a film that seems to exist because the brand name was sitting on the shelf. ## The Strategy Needs More Than Recognition The live-action Moana does not prove Disney should stop remaking animated films. It does show the cost of treating familiarity as enough. The strongest Disney remakes have some clear reason to exist beyond the title: a new lead performance, a different shape, a visual bet, a tonal shift, or a story gap the older film left open. ComicBook.com noted that Moana faced competition from The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and that kind of calendar pressure matters. But competition does not explain why the remake had such a hard climb in the first place. The bigger problem is that Disney remade a movie whose best version was still warm in the audience’s hands. The 2016 Moana made $687.2 million because people wanted that film. The 2026 Moana is trying to prove people wanted a second version of the same one. So far, the box office says many of them were happier staying with the wave they already knew. ## How this piece was made **Format:** Editorial feature ## In this piece - [Dwayne Johnson](https://cinepixo.com/people/dwayne-johnson) - 2026 · [Moana](https://cinepixo.com/movies/moana-2026) - 2016 · [Moana](https://cinepixo.com/movies/moana-2016) ## Sources - https://comicbook.com/movies/list/4-disney-live-action-remake-box-office-bombs-that-moana-might-not-even-beat/ - https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/as-moana-whiffs-is-disneys-live-action-remake-strategy-dead/ar-AA27Tqdp - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/moanas-live-action-remake-failed-153113491.html - https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/moana-review-a-live-action-remake-thats-dead-in-the-water-32d1a37f Every factual claim above is drawn from these. The reading of them is ours. Source: https://cinepixo.com/blog/disneys-moana-remake-shows-the-limit-of-selling-the-same-wave-twice Written for CinePixo. Nothing on this page is imported prose.