‘Moana 2’ Coming to Theaters for Thanksgiving 2024
Moana is getting a surprise sequel, as Disney CEO Bob Iger announced that Moana 2, Walt Disney Animation’s all-new feature-length sequel to 2016’s Oscar-nominated film, will be released in theaters in 2024. This post shares the announcement, why this is coming out of left field, and what it could mean for Walt Disney World and beyond.
“Moana remains an incredibly popular franchise,” said Iger. “And we can’t wait to give you more of Moana and Maui when Moana 2 comes to theaters this November.” Walt Disney Animation Studios’ epic, all-new animated musical Moana 2 takes audiences on an expansive new voyage with Moana, Maui and a brand-new crew of unlikely seafarers.
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ epic animated musical Moana 2 takes audiences on an expansive new voyage with Moana, Maui and a brand-new crew of unlikely seafarers. After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.
Moana 2 is being directed by Dave Derrick Jr., with music by Grammy winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa’i, and three-time Grammy winner Mark Mancina. Moana 2 opens in theaters this Thanksgiving Eve, on November 27, 2024.
Oddly enough, Disney did not confirm whether Auli‘i Cravalho and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would reprise their roles in Moana 2. Normally, that would seem like a given, but in light of other upcoming sequels and the origins of this movie, it’s no sure thing. The good news is that both Cravalho and Johnson posted the teaser for Moana 2 on Instagram, strongly suggesting they’ll be back for the sequel. Phew.
In addition to the surprise announcement of Moana 2, Bob Iger also shared on the earnings call that Zootopia 2 will be released in 2025. Frozen 3 and the Toy Story 5 will be released in 2026.
Turning to commentary, this comes as a surprise because Disney never announced Moana 2. I know it might be tough to keep track of all the sequels because there are so many, but there was originally going to be a Disney+ series based on Moana. You might’ve forgotten, but it was among the Like 937 Things Announced During Disney’s Investor Day in 2020.
Originally titled “Moana: The Series,” it was produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios in Vancouver, Canada. That branch of the studio is also responsible for animation for a Disney+ series based on The Princess and the Frog. This might raise some red flags, as longtime fans are probably well aware that Disney has used these non-Burbank outposts to create direct-to-video sequels or subpar animation.
But before you start worrying about that or that Disney is pushing this to theaters due to a weaker slate, it’s worth noting that there have been rumors for a couple of months now that “Moana: The Series” was far exceeding expectations both in story and animation quality. Between this and a dearth of other release options, this caused Disney to consider converting the series into a full-length feature film.
If you could swear that Disney actually already announced a sequel to Moana coming to theaters, you’re probably thinking of the live action Moana, which is (currently) slated for release on June 27, 2025. That was the big surprise announcement during last year’s Annual Shareholder’s meeting, when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson broke the news.
The new live-action Moana film is produced by Johnson, Dany Garcia, and Hiram Garcia via their Seven Bucks Productions and Beau Flynn via Flynn Picture Co. Executive producers include Auli‘i Cravalho, who voiced Moana, and Scott Sheldon of Flynn Picture Co. Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller will also take part in the production. Bush, who was a director and co-writer of Disney’s Oscar-winning film Encanto and a writer and co-director on Disney’s Oscar-winning Zootopia, wrote the screenplay for the original Moana movie.
According to Disney, the live-action reimagining of Moana will celebrate the islands, communities, and traditions of Pacific Islanders as seen through the eyes of a young woman eager to pave her own path. Moana’s journey of self-discovery and reflection on the lives of her ancestors won hearts worldwide, as did her newfound friendship with an exiled demigod named Maui.
While it might seem crazy to release Moana 2 and then turn around 6 months later to drop a live action remake–which normally have been of decades-old animated films–I kind of get it here. It’s a stars-aligned sort of scenario, where the Disney+ series looked really good and deserving of a theatrical release.
Not only that, but The Rock isn’t getting any younger. Although it seems like he’s an ageless wonder, now is probably the time to do a live-action remake if he’s going to play Maui. Even as someone who has been a huge critic of these live-action remakes as creatively-bankrupt and superfluous, I’m actually sympathetic to this one.
I don’t think it’ll be better than the original, but the live-action Moana should be a fun movie in a stunning setting. While his track record has become spottier in recent years, The Rock knows what he’s doing here. I’d be willing to bet this will be the biggest live-action remake since Aladdin.
This also makes sense given the staying power of Moana. The original movie was directed by Disney legends Ron Clements and John Musker and co-directed by Chris Williams and Don Hall. It was released for Thanksgiving 2016, where it made $682.6 million at the box office. That’s fantastic as compared to current bombs, but it was actually far overshadowed by other Disney and Pixar animated releases of that ‘era’ (yes, it’s a different era than post-pandemic).
In the years since the release of Moana, its popularity has only grown. According to Nielsen, Moana topped all other movies in 2023 with an all-time high of 11.6 billion viewing minutes after landing in the top four spots over the past four years. Since Nielsen began measuring streaming, audiences have watched nearly 80 billion minutes of Moana, which translates to watching the full movie 775 million times.
And as you’re probably aware, Moana’s Journey of Water Inspired opened late last year at EPCOT. This is the first standalone attraction based on Moana in any of the Disney Parks, but probably not the last. Which brings us to our final point…
More Moana is also probably on the way at Walt Disney World, Disneyland and beyond. That would probably end up being true without regard for “Moana: The Series” being converted into Moana 2. Between the early live action remake (almost assuredly a success given the popularity of the original plus The Rock) and the growth in the minutes-streamed stat, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Moana will have a stronger parks presence.
For a ‘blueprint’ of Moana’s future theme park presence, I’d look no further than World of Frozen, which just opened at Hong Kong Disneyland and is coming in 2025 to Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris. I haven’t the slightest idea where it’ll go or what it’ll entail, but if Moana 2 and the live-action remake are smash successes at the box office, another single IP land is a distinct possibility.
Another possibility is a new twist on Fantasy Springs, the port-of-call at Tokyo DisneySea that’ll merge Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan into a single land. That addition has dedicated areas–rather than an entire land or just single attractions–for each of those movies.
Fantasy Springs could very well be the next ‘evolution’ theme park design, as Disney moves away from the single IP land and towards concepts that blend together a variety of properties. Even if you never experience Fantasy Springs, you might recognize this major development as…how theme park lands used to be! Sort of like how streaming was the evolution of the cable bundle…but has itself essentially reinvented the bundle. (Joking aside, Fantasy Springs is actually a new twist, as it’s more like 3 self-contained minilands.)
We also have a fairly good idea that this is the plan for the future, since all of Imagineering’s blue sky daydreaming teases for Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom have brought together a variety of IP (Moana + Zootopia; Indiana Jones + Encanto; Coco + Encanto, etc.) into these expansions. Who knows what will end up happening with all of that, but I suspect the odds have just gone up on a new “Moana + something” land at Walt Disney World.
Regardless of what happens, I’d expect Walt Disney World to start steering away from Star Wars and Marvel, with the possible exception of a thrill ride rethemed to Wakanda and retooling of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Other than that, I think we’ve entered the era of stuff based on classic and new-classic Walt Disney Animation Studios films, along with a dash of (underutilized) Pixar movies.
When it comes to potential options here, there are a lot of popular options that have even less of a park presence than Moana, including but not limited to Zootopia, Coco, Inside Out, Encanto, and pretty much everything from the Disney Renaissance in the 1990s. There are actually many popular movies that have no meaningful presence in attractions at Walt Disney World, so not as much “need” to double dip on Moana…but it’ll happen anyway!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on more Moana being added to Walt Disney World or Disneyland in the style of World of Frozen or Fantasy Springs? Think the Walt Disney Company will follow through on its purported plans to “turbocharge” investment and double CapEx to $60 billion on Park & Resorts in the next decade with significant investment in a land that features Moana? Which IPs would you like to see better represented at WDW and DLR? Anything you’re hoping does not end up coming to fruition? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Hey, I like to think of the mini-lands within Fantasy Springs as a successful version of what Golden State was trying to do.
While I’d usually be wary of trying to retool a project too far into development (that and bad Elemental advertising cost the feature films division a lot of profit last year), the fact is there’s a strike-shaped pit in the schedule and I’d rather not waste a lot of time getting this one back to normal.
This was huge news. One of the things not mentioned in Tom’s article was the fact that “Moana 2” will be releasing on the same day that Universal’s highly anticipated adaptation of the musical “Wicked” (part 1) debuts in theaters. I wouldn’t think that Disney would be that bold to open up against what could potentially be a big hit, if it didn’t feel it had the goods itself. I wouldn’t be surprised if Universal moves Wicked to earlier in November, or potentially mid-December to get out of its way… but maybe all involved hope for a repeat of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon.
What is interesting is that Disney is basically taking their gloves off when it comes to Universal – between this, the announcement of Zootopia 2 which will release opposite Wicked Part II in 2025, and the Epic/Fortnite deal (which inadvertenly associates Disney with the word “Epic” right after Universal made a splashy announcement of their own last week), they are coming out swinging.
Not mentioned because, honestly, I did not know that! Thanks for sharing–that’s an interesting observation.
This being “Barbenheimer 2.0” seems unlikely given the proximity to Thanksgiving and one of the movies being animated, but then again, Barbie and Oppenheimer was also an improbable double-feature! It’ll be interesting to watch what happens.
No Lin Manuel Miranda concerns me. And I don’t think the Rock was mentioned at any point in the announcement, is he in Moana 2? I’m guessing he felt he was too big for a TV show and by the time they pivoted to film it was too late… Neither a good sign IMO, though I’ll give it a shot as the first film is truly fantastic.
I wouldn’t say it’s too late. Even if he wasn’t originally going to do it, there’s still time to rerecord the dialogue if he’s had a change of heart. But there’s also the possibility he was entirely willing to do it as a TV series, but Disney didn’t want to pay up, like what happened with Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling for Inside Out 2.
Both Auli‘i Cravalho and The Rock posted the Moana 2 teaser on Instagram. Given that, the scale of the sequel, and their importance to it, I’d be absolutely shocked if they aren’t back.
He may not be getting any younger, but he ages very well as demonstrated in WWE this past weekend.
Sure, visibly, he’s more impressive, but the man was gassed after 5 minute with Jinder Mahal. I don’t know how in the world he thinks he’ll convincingly win over Roman Reigns (except that Roman will sell magnificently, of course).
He’ll age more when he realises he’s getting booed out the building for taking Cody’s spot.
I actually think the plot of Moana is wesker than most Disney movies of the era (why didn’t the sea just five the rock back to the goddess? Why are the pirates there except we needed an action scene? Do we just ignore that Maui tried to murder Moana?), but the spectacular soundtrack elevates it close to Frozen territory. (On that note, I wish Menken had worked on Wish insteaf of being stuck on the live action Mermaid.)
But I hope this movie is good and look forward to combo lands like Fantasy Springs (can we please have some more Tangled?). I do hope they finish out Pandora, Avengers campus, and Galaxy’s edge as well, though.
Moana is great, and this is exciting. I am concerned that it feels like it is coming too fast and too out of nowhere, though. I hope Disney is giving themselves enough time to make a great sequel instead of trying to make a cash grab when their animation division has been struggling.
This is so out of nowhere! Maybe after wish underperformed they prefer to release more of a “sure thing” this year.
One other aspect of this worth noting. My jaw dropped when I saw the music is by “ Grammy winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear” – who were at the center of the drama around the unauthorized Bridgerton musical. I had thought that whole situation had destroyed their career. I’m happy for them that they have this opportunity. I had a sense that they were being manipulated by opportunistic people into thinking that they were legally in the clear to do that show when they weren’t. If you aren’t familiar with this situation, the channel “Mickey Jo theater” did an informative video on it when it was happening.
I don’t think they were manipulated, I think they got a little full of themselves once their TikTok project really took off. Everything I have read says that Netflix reached out to them once they started charging money for live concerts, not to shut them down but to come up with a licensing agreement. And the composers weren’t interested, and that’s when Netflix started with the cease and desist. I hope they’ve learned their lesson as they are talented, and writing for Disney is certainly a high profile and very well paying job.
Interesting fact: Disney pays a huge sum of money upfront to their composers because part of the agreement of working for Disney is you forfeit the rights to the song. (In other words, unlike most songs written for movies the writers get no residuals, no matter how popular they become.) This started because Walt Disney was really annoyed he had to pay money every time he wanted to use “When You Wish Upon a Star” in some project that wasn’t the original Pinocchio film.
It’s not really true that songwriters forfeit the rights to their songs to Disney. Disney does have a publishing arm that owns or co-owns most of their films’ songs, but they’re affiliated with ASCAP and pay their songwriters accordingly. Alan Menken reportedly earns tens of millions of dollars in ASCAP royalties every year.