Disney+ has become a place for Disney's biggest movies to become even more popular or finally find a wide audience after initially releasing in theaters. The streaming service has propped up major blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water and Zootopia 2, while it gave a box office bomb like Tron: Ares some redemption.
The latter category is where Disney believed 2026's Moana would fall. The live-action remake of the beloved 2016 animated movie came out in theaters this summer, and brought significant box office expectations with it. The animated Moana movies were massive hits on the big screen, with Moana 2 making over $1 billion just two years ago.
The live-action remake could not go nearly as far. The $250 million production bombed with a $323 million worldwide gross. After the film's poor opening weekend, Moana was projected to lose over $100 million for Disney. Rather than immediately declaring the remake a misfire, Disney's new CEO Josh D'Amaro suggested that it brought in substantial revenue elsewhere and believed it would draw significant interest on Disney+.
Moana entered its streaming era on October 21, which is when it officially debuted on Disney's service worldwide. This should have been the start of a successful run for the movie as a global audience enjoyed the film at home, and despite finding some more fans, the reception on Disney+ has failed to reverse the movie's disappointing run.
At first glance, it's easy to think that the live-action remake has been a hit. Moana found streaming success on Disney+ immediately, as it climbed to #1 on the charts. Nearly three weeks later, it still holds this spot globally (via FlixPatrol). However, whereas it was the biggest movie in 71 countries then, it is down to only 14 now, one of them being the United States.
Moana's chart-topping performance is not as good as it seems thanks to its viewership numbers. Disney has not officially announced any details about how the remake has performed in its debut. The silence speaks volumes in a case like this. Disney loves to celebrate its biggest streaming hits and announce when new films do great on the streamer. Clearly, the Disney+ viewership is not worth bringing to light for Disney.
This isn't just an assumption, as Nieslen's data backs this up. The global service tracks viewership across all streamers every week, and from October 19–25 (the week Moana debuted on Disney+), the movie was watched for 579 million minutes. That is equivalent to just over 5 million views based on the film's 115-minute runtime. While that was enough for Moana to be the biggest movie on streaming that week, it was poor for Disney.
As reported by Netflix & Chiffres, the 5 million views in its first 5 days on Disney+ give Moana one of the lowest launches for a live-action Disney theatrical movie on the streamer. It just edged out The Fantastic Four: First Steps and was ahead of Freakier Friday and Tron: Ares, but that's where the list ends.
This makes Moana the worst Disney+ launch for a Disney live-action remake. The Little Mermaid doubled its viewership (10.2 million views). Lilo & Stitch performed well with 7.4 million views. Even Snow White debuted to 5.3 million views. This lack of interest at launch doesn't inspire confidence that Moana's additional time on the streamer will right the ship, putting the franchise in uncharted waters.
The animated sequel has also been a massive success during its time on streaming. Disney announced last year that Moana 2 launched to 27.5 million views in its first 5 days, which was the third-largest debut for a theatrical movie at the time. It went on to become Disney+'s most-watched movie in 2025, earning 80 million views (via What's On Disney Plus).
Both Moana movies charted on Disney+ ahead of the live-action remake's release, adding to their impressive viewership figures. It was anticipated that the 2026 feature would have a similar level of popularity once it came to streaming. Instead, the live-action Moana received less than 20% of the initial views that Moana 2 did less than two years ago.
As a result, Disney+ has not been the saving grace for Moana that everyone associated with it hoped for. It has simply been another opportunity for audiences to largely reject the remake. Now, the 2026 movie will go down as a critical, financial, and streaming disappointment.
The results are surprising for the Moana franchise, but there were questions about its viability as a remake from early on. Many of these were diminished due to the assumption that general audiences would still be eager to see Moana and Maui's adventure in this new format, which proved to not be the case.
The biggest hurdle the live-action remake faced was timing. Disney changed a Moana Disney+ show into Moana 2 to give the studio a major box office hit, even though the live-action remake was already announced and gearing up to release. While the remake was delayed a year to space out the releases a bit more, it's clear audiences weren't ready for this type of movie. Not only did they just enjoy an animated sequel, but the original hit was only a decade old, eliminating the nostalgic pull of remaking something like Lilo & Stitch.
It didn't help that 2026's Moana received largely negative reviews, which primarily revolved around its lack of imagination and being far too similar to the original. Dwayne Johnson's decline as a reliable box office star in recent years was also a knock on the movie, but this would've been a bigger hit for him and Disney if the final product was better and came out at a different point in time.
It's worth noting it came out a week before The Odyssey and three weeks before Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Those became the event films of the summer, and with families showing more favor to Minions & Monsters (which came out just 9 days before) and Toy Story 5 (released one month before), the stacked summer competition proved to be too much for Moana to combat.
Now, the question becomes what comes next for Moana. The IP is too valuable to Disney for them to let it die. Just as Moana was brought back to life in Moana 2's ending, the franchise will live on despite the disappointing outcome this year.
This will come with an extra focus on animation versus exploring more live-action avenues. Dwayne Johnson confirmed Moana 3 is in development ahead of the live-action remake's release. He revealed that Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller are writing the script for Walt Disney Animation Studios, which has yet to formally announce plans or a release date for the third animated film.
What 2026 really means for Moana is that we won't be seeing any more live-action remakes. Disney isn't going to try and redo the animated sequel right now, with Moana 3 the priority. By the time that movie is ready to come out, and the studio even begins contemplating potential next steps in the live-action space, Catherine Laga'aia will have aged out of the teenager role. Something like a live-action Maui prequel could have happened in the interim if the 2026 movie was successful, but that's not getting a greenlight now.
