Disney’s live-action Moana opens below expectations: projections cut to $40M-$46M

Disney’s live-action Moana is off to a softer start than Disney hoped in North America. Opening-weekend projections have fallen from $60 million to $75 million down to roughly $40 million to $46 million, a shaky start for one of the studio’s biggest remake swings of the year.

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The drop matters for a simple reason: this movie was expensive. Reports put the budget at around $250 million, and analysts say it may need about $625 million worldwide just to break even. Thursday previews brought in $4.5 million, which put it ahead of Snow White but still well behind The Little Mermaid, which opened with $10.3 million in previews.

Reviews haven’t helped. Disney’s live-action Moana is sitting at 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics arguing that it sticks too close to the original and never really captures the spark of the 2016 film. Audiences were kinder, giving it an A- CinemaScore. A lot of that praise went to the cast and the movie’s faithfulness, though complaints about the CGI and the dialogue changes kept coming up too.

For anyone keeping an eye on Disney’s remake playbook, there’s a lot here. Dwayne Johnson came back as Maui and got a mixed response, while newcomer Catherine Laga’aia seems to have landed better with viewers and critics. It also probably didn’t help that this remake showed up less than two years after Moana 2 pulled in $1 billion, which may have made another version of Moana feel less necessary in the first place.

Disney’s live-action Moana is now in theaters. What happens next will depend a lot on overseas business and whether family audiences show up in force, especially if the movie wants to steady itself after Lilo & Stitch broke through and Snow White fell short.