Hey Disney friends. I was listening to Disney President and Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden’s interview with Bloomberg’s Screentime, and while I was certainly interested to hear that there is hope for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, it wasn’t until I reached the part about Moana that I really stopped and paid attention. So, let’s go back a little and start from the beginning.
Disney’s Moana arrived in 2016 and told a story that felt different from your average Disney princess tale. Instead of castles, there was community. Instead of ballroom dances, there was culture, family, heritage, and a connection to the ocean that made the story feel incredibly distinctive. It quickly became a favorite in the Disney library, and for many fans, Moana became much more than another animated character.
Fast forward to 2024, and Moana 2 arrived, taking the story forward with a new adventure and a slightly older Moana. New characters, new music, new adventure; success. Then came 2026 and the long-awaited live-action Moana, which had a very different reception from what Disney might have hoped. And this is where Dana Walden’s comments about the newest film’s seemingly poor performance caught my attention. Her reasoning points toward the relatively short window between the animated sequel and the live-action movie, suggesting that perhaps audiences simply hadn’t had enough time to develop that desire for a new version of the story.
And I can see what she means. I really can. There is definitely an element that is different from other live-action remakes, where there was not enough time for a new generation of fans to be ready to stamp their own take on the original, like, for instance, The Little Mermaid, which still struggled with criticism just as much. But at the same time, I found myself sitting there thinking, What are you talking about?
Because haven’t we been having this conversation about live-action remakes for years?
Audiences have become increasingly divided over the idea of taking beloved animated films and remaking them in live action. Some people turn up because they have a deep connection to the original, some go because they want to see how the filmmakers have reimagined it, and plenty simply decide that they have already seen this story and don’t need another version until it streams on Disney+. For a long time now, the question has been less about whether Disney can make these movies and more about whether audiences actually want them.
Now, I am absolutely not the person to ask if live-action remakes are a good idea because I LOVE them. And you know I don’t use all-caps often! I am here for every moment. I love seeing the creative process, the decisions that have to be made when something moves from animation into a real-world environment, and all of those little choices that make a familiar story look completely different. I will continue turning up for them. I am very much a card-carrying member of the live-action remake fan club.
Then there is the fact that it was Moana. Come on. Of course I was going to love this one. But even with all of that enthusiasm, I have always understood that my particular position is probably not the majority view. And I think that is important when we start talking about whether the movie ‘missed’, as Lucas Shaw put it.
Movie tickets are expensive. People are much more careful about where they spend their entertainment dollars, and I don’t think we can rely on the idea that adding a huge star to a familiar Disney title automatically guarantees that people will open their wallets. The audience has choices, and a remake has to convince people that there is something worth seeing beyond the story they already know, with a sense of urgency to see it in theaters.
That makes me wonder whether Live-Action Moana was ever given a realistic set of expectations in the first place.
If the goalposts were marked differently from the beginning, is it really surprising when the movie doesn’t deliver the enormous theatrical response that some Disney executives may have hoped for? The people who absolutely adore Moana and wanted to see this new interpretation had the opportunity to show up, while the people who simply aren’t interested in remakes had every reason to stay home. Isn’t that, to some degree, exactly what we should have expected?
Of course, a Disney movie’s value doesn’t stop at the box office. The financial reach of a major franchise extends into merchandise, Disney Parks, Disney Cruise Line, and Disney Resort stays, and Moana has become part of the wider Disney experience in ways that a box office number simply cannot capture. A character can inspire a family vacation, a piece of merchandise, a meet-and-greet, or an entire generation of Disney fans without any of that being reflected in the opening weekend figures.
That doesn’t mean the box office doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. But I think there is a bigger conversation here about what Disney expects from these movies and whether the audience has actually been asking for them in the numbers that those expectations require. And perhaps that is the part I find most interesting. I can sit here as someone who genuinely loved Live-Action Moana, who was excited to see the story brought to life, and who will happily continue watching these adaptations, while also recognizing that the wider Disney audience simply does not share my enthusiasm.
So, Disney friends, what do you think? Was Live-Action Moana a good idea to begin with? And once Disney decided to make it, was the response really unexpected, or were the signs there from the beginning?
The post Is Disney President Dana Walden Missing the Mark on ‘Moana’? first appeared on The DIS.
