Was Moana 2 going to theaters a response to the failure of Disney’s Wish? The evidence is compelling!
Moana 2 has just hit Disney+ this week, allowing audiences to check it out. Of course, it’s likely many have already seen the movie in theaters. Since its release in Thanksgiving 2024, the film has pulled in over a billion dollars at the global box office and is one of the biggest hits of 2024.
Its arrival on Disney+ allows more people to study the film and its unique structure. By now, it’s well known that Disney had planned an animated series that would have followed up the 2016 smash as an older Moana goes on a new journey with demigod Maui in tow.
The film’s origin as a TV show is clear and also lends more credence to the idea that its sudden change to a film was because Disney needed a fast theatrical hit after a big flop.
Moana 2’s obvious TV show origins
Watching the movie at home and it truly does feel like you’re binging a short season of an animated series rather than a feature movie. It’s not that it’s a bad film, as the animation sparkles and there are some good songs (even if they are not equal to the first film). However, it’s impossible to ignore that this is a refitted TV show.
The opening act is like watching two episodes with Moana and her younger sister on their island, learning of a big threat and Moana organizing a crew. You can almost literally see where the closing credits for the pilot were to take place when they sailed off.
That carries into the second part, as they have a variety of adventures that would have filled an episode. Maui himself enters the story full-on halfway through, with Dwayne Johnson’s presence clearly meant to be a mid-season shakeup.
The rest of the movie feels and flows better, as that’s when it was changed into a feature film. Yet this feels like a throwback to two things. The first is the tendency of Disney to put together episodes of their 1950s TV show into movies for audiences.
The second and most blatant is the wave of direct-to-video animated sequels of the 1990s and 2000s. They featured subpar animation and voices and often failed to capture the spirit of the original films. While Moana 2’s visuals are on par with the 2016 movie, in almost every other regard, it’s lacking compared to its predecessor.
The question is why Disney would do this, go to the trouble of reworking a TV show into a film? Well, the answer may be in the previous Disney animated entry’s epic failure.
Did Wish’s bombing lead to Moana 2’s push to theaters?
Moana 2’s success broke what had been a bad trend for Disney of their Thanksgiving animated releases flopping. 2022’s Strange New Worlds was first, an embarrassment that was given little promotion by Disney.
Wish, on the other hand, suffered worse. What was meant to be Disney’s celebration of its 100th anniversary, a classic throwback to their animated movies of the Golden Age, turned into a debacle with mixed to poor reviews and the studio estimated to have lost $130 million on it.
That was a huge setback for Disney that they couldn't afford. They needed a hit, not just for the bottom line but to restore consumer confidence and couldn't take their time developing something from scratch.
Let’s look at the timeline: Wish was cited as a bomb pretty much from its opening weekend in November of 2023. At that point, the Moana TV show was deep into post-production work of the first episodes and planning a 2025 release on Disney+.
As revealed in a Financial Times article, it was in January of 2024 that the Moana production team was informed by Disney Studios President Alan Bergman that they had to shift from a five-episode series to a feature film. Said film was then announced in February with a Thanksgiving release date.
Put it all together, and it’s not hard to connect the dots. With Wish capping off a poor 2023 box office year for Disney, they needed an animated movie for Thanksgiving 2024 and they needed it fast. With Moana the only thing in development, rushing it to theaters was the best move for Disney.
In other words, had Wish ended up becoming a hit or even breaking even at the box office, folks would have been watching Moana as a Disney+ series.
Why the rushed production hurt Moana 2
It explains why the movie is so slapdash and does not hold up as well as the first film did. It truly feels like you’re binging an entire season in one go and it suffers for it. Again, it’s not an awful movie, but one can’t help but think that if it had always been intended as a feature film, it could have been much better.
It’s obvious the series would have given more focus to Moana’s new friends and crew, maybe each getting a spotlight episode/adventure on their pasts and deepening the characters. Sadly, the movie means that after big introductions, the trio is shoved aside and just quick touches (Moni the Maui fanboy, Loto quirky and brilliant and Kele the grumpy old guy) instead of full development.
Maui gets his own song again, yet we don’t feel the same connection between him and Moana. On that, Moana’s tale is rushed and not shining as well as she did before. It just shows a haphazard approach to the film.
Rushing a production to theaters almost never ends well, especially for Disney. In a way, the Moana 2 producers and creative team should be credited for managing to make this work as well as it did, as it could have ended up far worse.
They benefited from getting the original voice actors and some fun songs, and the second half (the actual feature film part) works better than the rough first half. Still, it’s impossible to get over the origins as an episodic series holding the story back.
Moana 2 is worth watching and better than a lot of Disney sequels. Yet it only exists as it does because of the flopping of Wish as that movie’s failure set up one of the more unlikely success stories in Disney history.
Moana 2 and Wish streaming on Disney+.