The animated Moana became a major hit for Disney, deservedly so. The combination of story, cast, songs, and setting helped it find a large audience. So much so, that the originally straight-to-streaming sequel scored a huge box office draw.
All eyes were then on the live action adaptation and expectations were high… until they weren’t.
Critics were not kind, and fans who turned out in droves for the animated versions either seemed to mock it online, or swerve it completely.
Disney’s lack of cost control, felt across their empire in the world of Star Wars and Marvel too, was again at play.
Somehow, the live-action version cost $370 million to make. For a movie that is an adaptation of a pre-existing story. With dialogue already written and songs already composed. $370 million. Quite literally – WTF?
The net result is that now the dust has settled, Disney is still carrying the bag for a $100 million loss on the project.
Now, appearing at a Bloomberg’s Screentime event (as reported by Dark Horizons), Disney President and CCO Dana Walden says the studio takes the blame, as they went too soon:
“It’s so competitive right now that you have to have … the right film at the right time, with audiences feeling a certain degree of demand.
I would say our live-action ‘Moana,’ which is excellent, I think it was hurt by the proximity to our second animated version of ‘Moana,’ which came together under unusual circumstances, but premiered about 18 months before this one. So perhaps there was not enough time to create a lot of pent-up demand for another film.”
So they did not learn a single thing from the Rogue One to The Last Jedi to Solo debacle, where they also accepted they had saturated their own market?
Walden seemed to also indicate that they still have plans for the Moana IP going forward.
