Moana Two-Hundred-and-Twenty-Five Million

Disney almost didn't know how far 'Moana 2' would go...
Moana Two-Hundred-and-Twenty-Five Million

The most surprising element of Moana 2's massive $225M box office opening weekend is that it was, very nearly, $0.

Until February of this year, when Bob Iger revealed on a Disney earnings call of all places that Moana 2 was being "upgraded" to a theatrical release, it was slated to launch – at first as a series – on Disney+. Yes, the biggest movie of the year nearly had no run in theaters and was made under that assumption. Kudos to Disney for the last-minute pivot, but wow, what an original miscalculation.

Even in that earnings release and in subsequent statements from the filmmakers, it sounds like they decided to release Moana 2 to theaters because they thought the footage was good.1 But that actually shouldn't have mattered at all! They should have released it in theaters because the streaming numbers for the first Moana should have made it obvious what a massive hit the sequel was going to be.

It's not just that this was a sleeper hit on streaming, or even a hit on Disney+. Moana was the number one movie across all platforms last year. And that followed a build up over the past eight years since the original was released in theaters. Early on, before Disney+ existed, Netflix likely helped spur interest, as Ben Cohen points out in The Wall Street Journal. Once it shifted over to Disney+, it grew and grew each year. Perhaps part of the appeal was the tropical island vibe while families were stuck inside during the pandemic. Certainly a big part of it – as my own household can attest – was the music.2 In Lin-Manuel Miranda we trust.3 The somewhat counter-programming to the standard Disney Princess fare perhaps helped as well. It was probably all of those things and more.

But regardless of why, all Disney should have had to do was look at those up-and-to-the-right streaming numbers to know what they should have done here. And that matters because this is the future of Hollywood in a conch shell.

The future of movies will be a mixture of theatrical and streaming with a new level of fluidity needed between the two and a new level of dexterity from the studios to make changes on a dime based on market conditions. The idea of pulling back a movie from a theatrical release if it isn't tracking well isn't new, but it rarely happens. And the Wolfs shitshow is a showcase of why. Apple probably read the numbers right, but read the room (with regard to their talent) exactly wrong.

We're likely going to see more such situations until that fluidity becomes normalized. The ego of the talent is going to have to recognize the need to be nimble if they want to play for a bigger prize. At the same time, the studios are going to have to get more creative with such openings – doing things like a one-weekend-only theatrical run for super-fans and then pulling a movie for a few weeks to build back up demand before it goes to streaming. And the compensation structure is likely going to have to be altered significantly for all of this to work in a seamless manner.

But it's not just leveraging theatrical as marketing – something Netflix needs to learn in this new world, and will, I suspect – it's also leveraging streaming to build something into a juggernaut that can then go theatrical. Either with a pull-back from streaming for a limited theatrical run. Or, more often, for a sequel. That's something we haven't really seen: a movie that "opens" at home and then a sequel that goes "big" with a theatrical release. But streaming makes this both possible and inevitable.

That was obviously not the situation with Moana, but it wasn't entirely different either because again, Moana was a far bigger hit on streaming than it was in theaters. To be clear, it was still a hit, but it wasn't Frozen. Hell, it wasn't even The Secret Life of Pets. Back to Cohen:

Nobody would have. This was a movie that finished 12th at the global box office in the year it came out, behind other animated movies like “Finding Dory,” “Zootopia” and “The Secret Life of Pets.” On the list of highest-grossing animated movies of all time, “Moana” is lower than “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “Big Hero 6.” It still won its opening weekend and made about $645 million worldwide, but “Frozen” and “Frozen 2” both made twice as much money.

But as we've seen with Netflix turning middling, older TV shows into massive hits, Disney (with perhaps the small early assist from Netflix) was able to do this with Moana. And that's great news for Disney. Again, it gives them more optionality with their content. And it should be good for filmmakers, because it will allow Disney (and other streamers) to take more "risks" on newer talent or outlandish ideas if they don't have to spend the full amount to make and market a theatrical release. And if it works on streaming, boom: go big for the sequel.

And when you add streaming television content into this mix – again, this Moana sequel was originally greenlit as a series on Disney+ – things just get even more interesting and varied. The notion of TV shows "graduating" to movies has been around for decades, and it also is a bit of a showcase of the same general idea: use one platform to build up a fan base and then leverage that to expand it to another format. But with streaming, studios have options like never before. And it will further blur the lines between television and film. Denis Villeneuve may not like this, but it's going to happen.

Anyway, hopefully Disney was just being coy with their rationale behind moving Moana 2 to theaters. Good or bad, this needed to be a theatrical sequel. And the market just proved that.4 You're welcome.


1 The reviews for Moana 2 actually aren't great. It's certainly getting worse marks than the original. We can argue about how much that actually matters. Perhaps for longevity in theaters. But it clearly doesn't matter for opening a franchise that became a phenomenon with kids on streaming.

2 My elder daughter may or may not have had a Moana-themed birthday last year. And yes, was there on opening day in theaters to see the sequel.

3 How strange is it that he wasn't brought back for the sequel? Not even to write one song? Maybe he was busy? Bizarre.

4 I wrote this whole post without one mention that box office records are largely bullshit, aren't you proud of me?5

5 But really, they are bullshit. I fully expected Moana 2 was going to be an insane hit, and it out-performed all expectations. But still, many of these records being touted need caveats. One example (there are many): Moana 2 is now the best three-day opening for Walt Disney Animation of all time at $135.5M. Number two is Frozen II $130.3M. But Frozen II was released in 2019. Just using even standard inflation (and movie ticket price inflation usually rises faster than standard inflation), $130.3M in 2019 dollars is worth over $160M today. This is why we need to count actual ticket sales. And this is why we never will.