In 2022, Dwayne Johnson was hoping to change the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe with the release of Black Adam. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan. Earning largely negative reviews (39% on Rotten Tomatoes), Black Adam was a box office disappointment, earning $393.4 million worldwide against a production budget in the range of $190-260 million. Johnson was looking for far better results with Disney’s live-action remake of Moana, which opened in theaters this past weekend. However, after earning negative reviews of its own, Moana debuted well below expectations at the box office, and it looks like it could go down as an even bigger flop than Black Adam.
According to Variety, Moana “could lose more than $100 million theatrically” following its underwhelming opening weekend of $43.1 million domestic and $95 million worldwide. In the aftermath of Black Adam‘s box office run, it was reported that the DC film was on pace to lose somewhere between $50-100 million, so there’s a world where Moana could end up losing more money than Black Adam.
Obviously, Moana‘s box office run is still in the early going, so there theoretically exists an opportunity where it could turn things around. However, this was about as disastrous a start imaginable for Disney. Moana cost $250 million to produce, with an additional $120 million going towards marketing. Per Variety, this means that the film needs to earn “at least $600 million to break even,” which could be a tall task. While nothing is guaranteed, the odds of Moana having strong legs at the box office seem quite low considering the current state of the theatrical landscape.
In retrospect, Moana didn’t have the best release date. It came out on the heels of Toy Story 5 and Minions & Monsters, a pair of well-received animated films that are also targeting families. Toy Story 5 has proven to be a massive draw, quickly approaching $900 million worldwide. There simply was not much demand for yet another family film on the heels of Toy Story and Minions — particularly one that’s a remake of a popular animated movie available to stream at home on Disney+. Moana became the easy one for families to skip. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is an R-rated fantasy epic targeting older moviegoers, but it’s going to be the main moviegoing event this weekend, meaning Moana won’t have much appeal amongst general audiences.
We’re also a couple of weeks away from the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is currently projected to have the biggest box office opening of the year so far. By the time Spider-Man hits theaters, business for Moana will probably have slowed down considerably. In order for Disney’s remake to stick around, it needed to have stronger word of mouth, but Moana was widely panned. Many considered it a weak carbon copy of the much better original animated film, with some people going so far as to call the live-action version “creatively bankrupt.” It wouldn’t be surprising to see Moana suffer a steep decline in its second weekend, essentially sealing its box office fate.
For what it’s worth, there are indications that viewers have enjoyed Moana. It has an A- CinemaScore and a “Verified Hot” audience rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, these metrics didn’t benefit the likes of The Mandalorian and Grogu and Supergirl earlier this summer. Both of those films received positive audience scores, but that didn’t translate to strong ticket sales. A year after Snow White bombed, Disney is going to have to take a loss on another live-action remake, meaning the studio may need to re-evaluate this strategy moving forward. As Lilo & Stitch illustrated, there’s still a market for these projects, but Disney needs to be smart about how they handle things.
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