Walt Disney Studios is facing a challenging start to the summer as its highly anticipated live-action adaptation of Moana sailed into the domestic box office well under expectations. The film is pacing toward a $45 million opening weekend across North American theaters, a stark contrast to early industry tracking that projected a debut in the $60 million to $75 million range.
The tentpole, directed by Thomas Kail and starring Dwayne Johnson alongside Catherine Laga’aia, kicked off its run with an $18 million Friday, a figure that includes Thursday preview screenings. While that was enough to secure the number one spot at the domestic box office, industry analysts view the numbers as an underwhelming start for a project that carries a hefty $250 million production budget.
This sluggish rollout echoes Disney’s March 2025 release of Snow White, which stumbled out of the gate with a $42 million opening before facing a difficult theatrical run, a misstep that prompted the studio to re-evaluate its strategy regarding live-action reboots of its animated classics. Although audiences handed Moana an encouraging A- CinemaScore, the film faces steep competitive hurdles in the coming weeks as Christopher Nolan’s cinematic epic The Odyssey prepares to enter the marketplace, leaving Disney to rely heavily on long-term family moviegoer turnout throughout the summer months to offset the weak start.
The live-action feature carries a massive legacy on its shoulders, given that the original 2016 animated Moana grossed $643 million worldwide, while the late 2024 sequel Moana 2 crossed the billion-dollar milestone after shattering records with a $225 million Thanksgiving launch, making the current theatrical comparisons even tougher on the live-action version.
Even with the modest box office numbers, Disney is leaning into the massive strength of the overall brand, pointing out that the property has logged over 1.5 billion streaming hours on Disney+, generated more than 22 million toy sales, and crossed 26 billion streams across musical platforms worldwide.
As for the rest of the domestic chart, the animated feature Minions & Monsters holds the number two position with an expected $21 million weekend haul, followed by Toy Story 5 in third place with roughly $18.6 million as it continues its strong global run past the $800 million mark, while the horror newcomer Evil Dead Burn opened in fourth place with $6.7 million.
