Moana live-action box office tracking far below other Disney remakes
Disney's Moana live-action remake is tracking $80-$105 million domestic opening for July 10, 2026. The latest trailer accumulated roughly 74 percent dislikes on YouTube.
The Moana live-action remake is sailing into July with the wind against it.
Disney‘s live-action Moana, starring Catherine Laga’aia as the title character and Dwayne Johnson reprising Maui, is tracking for an $80 million to $105 million domestic opening weekend when it arrives in theaters on July 10, 2026, per Box Office Theory and Coming Soon‘s coverage.
The same forecasts project a full domestic run of $240 million to $305 million.
Those numbers would put Moana below most of Disney’s recent live-action remake openings and well short of beating the $1.06 billion worldwide that the animated Moana 2 earned just 19 months ago.
Oof. You’re welcome?
The tracking numbers in context
The opening weekend projection of $80-$105 million looks reasonable in isolation. Compared to recent Disney live-action remakes, the picture gets less favorable.
The Little Mermaid (2023) opened to $95.6 million domestic on its way to $298 million worldwide on a $250 million budget. Snow White (2025) opened to $43 million and finished at $205 million worldwide, an outright bomb that paused Disney’s planned Tangled adaptation. Lilo & Stitch (2025) overperformed with $146 million opening and went on to gross over $500 million globally by making bigger changes to the source material.
Moana’s projected $80-$105 million opening would land it in The Little Mermaid territory. The original animated Moana (2016) grossed $643.3 million worldwide. Moana 2 (2024) reached $1.06 billion, becoming the highest-grossing Moana film and one of the top-grossing animated films of all time.
To beat Moana 2 at the domestic box office alone, the live-action remake needs roughly $461 million domestic. The current $240-$305 million tracking puts it well below that target.
The trailer reception has been unusually rough
The first trailer dropped November 17, 2025. Its first 24 hours generated 6.1 million YouTube views. The same first-day view count for Moana 2‘s trailer was approximately 178 million views, a roughly 29-to-1 gap between the animated sequel and the live-action remake from the same franchise.
The March 24, 2026 trailer fared worse. The Washington Times reported the trailer accumulated 149,000 dislikes against 53,000 likes, a dislike ratio of approximately 74 percent, per data tracked by third-party browser extensions.
The most common criticisms in the YouTube comment sections and on social media:
Heavy CGI use in what was promoted as a “live-action” remake. One YouTube commenter quoted across multiple coverage outlets: “The term ‘Live Action’ is doing some real heavy lifting here.“
Catherine Laga’aia’s hair was straightened in scenes, generating cultural insensitivity criticism. Laga’aia herself is Samoan-Australian, an intentional race-appropriate casting choice for the Polynesian character.
Dwayne Johnson’s prosthetics, wig, and body language as Maui have drawn the heaviest backlash. Multiple outlets noted that fan reaction has focused on Johnson looking “out of place” in the role he voiced in the animated original.
Coming Soon noted that the like-to-dislike ratios for both the November teaser and the March trailer remain “rough” as of June 2026, with both videos still trending heavily negative even months after release.
July 2026 is a brutal theatrical month
The competition lineup around Moana’s release is dense.
Toy Story 5 (Pixar) opens June 19, 2026 and will be in its fourth weekend when Moana drops. Minions & Monsters (Illumination) opens July 3, 2026 and will be in its second weekend. The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, Universal) opens July 17, 2026, one week after Moana. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony/Marvel) opens later in July.
Toy Story 5 and Minions & Monsters directly target the family audience that Moana needs. The Odyssey will pull premium-format screens away from Moana starting in its second weekend. Box Office Theory has projected Moana will get “a full IMAX and PLF spread on opening weekend before Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey arrives one week later.“
A one-week IMAX window is tight for a Disney tentpole. The animated Moana 2 had IMAX screens for nearly a month in late 2024.
Disney’s live-action remake math is getting harder
The Disney live-action remake template has been losing power for the past three years.
Snow White is the cautionary case. The film opened to $43 million on a $250-275 million production budget, generated months of pre-release controversy around lead Rachel Zegler‘s interview comments, and led directly to Disney pausing its planned Tangled live-action adaptation. The studio has been more cautious with subsequent remake greenlights since.
Lilo & Stitch showed the opposite case. The 2025 remake made significant changes to the original story, leaned harder into character work, and overperformed expectations. The takeaway industry-wide was that successful live-action remakes need to add value, not just replicate the animated source frame-by-frame.
Moana’s first trailers have signaled a shot-for-shot replica approach. Coming Soon‘s analysis noted that “trailers for the film have had to wade through rough waters“ specifically because the marketing is suggesting a faithful recreation rather than a reimagining. The fan reaction across social media has questioned the necessity of the remake at all, particularly given that Moana 2 just released 19 months ago.
What Disney is signaling
Disney has not commented publicly on the tracking numbers or the trailer reception. The film is locked in for July 10 and the marketing campaign is still ramping. Recent Dwayne Johnson interviews have leaned into the bodysuit prosthetics work and the cultural respect for the source material rather than addressing the online reception directly.
What Moana has working in its favor: Auli’i Cravalho, the original animated Moana voice actress, serves as executive producer. Lin-Manuel Miranda returns as a producer. Thomas Kail, the Tony-winning director of Hamilton, directs. The Polynesian casting is authentic. The songs are intact. The infrastructure for a successful release is in place.
What Moana has working against it: the trailer reception is genuinely bad, the competition window is brutal, Moana 2 hangover is real, Disney’s live-action remake track record outside of Lilo & Stitch is mixed at best, and the live-action concept itself appears to be losing audience appeal as the form keeps showing up across the studio’s release calendar.
The opening weekend will tell the story. $100 million-plus and the narrative becomes “Moana saved the live-action remake era.” $60 million or lower and the comparisons to The Little Mermaid and Snow White will dominate the post-release coverage.
The Ocean has been called. Whether anyone shows up to answer is the open question.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
Coming Soon (June 2026), primary source for the Moana live-action $80-$105 million opening weekend tracking and the $240-$305 million domestic full-run projection including the broader competitive context analysis
Box Office Theory (June 2026), primary source for the box office tracking forecast including the “full IMAX and PLF spread on opening weekend” framing and the broader Disney remake competitive analysis
Washington Times (March 24, 2026), primary source for the March 24 trailer accumulating 149,000 dislikes against 53,000 likes including the 74 percent dislike ratio context
Cosmic Book News / Matt McGloin (November 19, 2025 and March 24, 2026), comprehensive trailer reception coverage including the teaser dislike trajectory from 13K/14K to 85K/37K, the “How brave of Disney leaving the comment section open” reaction context, and the broader fan fatigue framing
Koimoi (June 2026), the $461 million domestic target needed for the live-action Moana to beat Moana 2 and the Moana franchise box office totals including the $643.3 million original worldwide gross and the $1.06 billion Moana 2 worldwide total
AOL / Looper (April 2026), summer 2026 box office predictions and the Dwayne Johnson recent flops context including the comparisons to The Little Mermaid
Yahoo Entertainment / Bored Panda / Bounding Into Comics (November 2025 and March 2026), the Catherine Laga’aia hair-straightening cultural insensitivity criticism, the Dwayne Johnson Maui appearance backlash, and the “racist changes to the heroine’s appearance” controversy framing
Yahoo / Digital Spy / CBR (June 2026), the final trailer coverage including Dwayne Johnson’s “couple of hours every day of transforming” prosthetics quote and the broader expectation-setting around the July 10 release
Creative Bloq (March 2026), the “washed out colours” and “AI-generated parody” trailer reception criticism context
The IMDb listing for Moana (2026), the film’s production details including director Thomas Kail, writers Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller, and the post-production status as of June 2026