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Credit: DisneyDisney’s live-action Moana (2026) walked into its opening weekend already bruised. It’s walking into its second weekend facing something far worse than bad reviews.
A Rough Debut Just Got Rougher
Moana‘s opening was already being discussed in terms usually reserved for cautionary tales. The film debuted to roughly $43 million domestically across its first three days, with a four-day total of $47.5 million, against a reported production budget somewhere between $200 million and $250 million before marketing is factored in. For comparison, Moana 2 (2024) opened to $389 million globally across five days and finished its run north of $1 billion worldwide — a benchmark that makes the live-action follow-up’s start look especially painful.
Critics haven’t been kind either. The film debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a 36% critics’ score, edging out Snow White (2025) at 39% for the unwanted distinction of Disney’s lowest-rated live-action remake to date. That’s a notable marker considering how bruising the Snow White rollout already was, from casting disputes to backlash over changes to its dwarf characters, before it landed as one of Disney’s biggest recent box office disappointments.
Heading into weekend two, Disney reportedly hoped Moana could ease by around 55% domestically, landing somewhere in the $20 million range. That kind of hold would be considered survivable in a normal release calendar. This isn’t a normal release calendar.
Christopher Nolan Doesn’t Need to Try Hard to Win This Week
Universal’s The Odyssey, the director’s long-awaited follow-up to the Best Picture-winning Oppenheimer (2023), arrives in theaters this week with a reported opening projection of $85 million to $100 million domestically and more than $200 million globally across seventy-three territories and 22,700 screens, per Deadline. For a Disney remake already limping out of week one, the timing could not be worse.
The Odyssey isn’t just another wide release competing for the same screens — it’s an event picture built around the kind of appointment viewing Disney’s remake can’t replicate. The pitch to audiences is straightforward: see it in IMAX, the way Nolan shot it and intended it to be seen. Advance sales for premium 70MM IMAX showtimes reportedly sold out more than a year in advance at venues including the BFI IMAX London, the London Science Museum, the Melbourne Museum IMAX, and the Oskar IMAX Plaza in Prague.
The cast alone — Matt Damon (Odysseus), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Zendaya (Athena), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Jon Bernthal (Menelaus), and Lupita Nyong’o (Helen of Troy) — gives the three-hour, R-rated retelling of Homer’s epic poem a star power that dwarfs most counterprogramming this summer. Advance ticket sales were reportedly tracking between $30 million and $40 million ahead of release, putting it in the neighborhood of recent blockbusters like Wicked: For Good (2025) and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), though a meaningful share of those sales includes Monday and Tuesday shows rather than opening weekend alone.
There’s also a historical precedent working in Nolan’s favor. Oppenheimer opened to $82.4 million domestically and finished with a four-times multiple, closing at $330 million in North America. Dunkirk (2017) and Inception (2010) followed similar patterns, each legging out well beyond their opening numbers. If The Odyssey performs anywhere close to that trajectory, it will dominate multiplex conversation for weeks — right as Moana is trying to hang on to whatever screens and audience goodwill it has left.
Fans Have Already Made Up Their Minds
The reaction across social media has been loud, and increasingly it isn’t limited to complaints about casting or changes to the source material — it’s a broader argument that Disney’s entire live-action remake strategy has run its course. “No one asked for or wanted this movie,” one commenter wrote following Moana‘s opening numbers. Another was more direct: “Let this finally be the end of the live-action remake,” urging Disney to reinvest in animation instead.
Not every reaction has been negative. Some pointed to the animated Moana franchise’s continued popularity and predicted a stronger showing, with one fan calling the original a “Disney+ goldmine.” But the louder, more skeptical voices appear to be lining up with what the box office numbers are now showing.
Disney Isn’t Backing Down — Yet
Despite the rocky rollout, Disney has given no indication that it’s reconsidering its live-action pipeline. A remake of Tangled (2010) remains in production, directed by Michael Gracey of The Greatest Showman (2017) fame, and stars Teagan Croft, Milo Manheim, Kathryn Hahn, and Diego Luna, with a reported 2028 release window.
That project already has its own share of online debate brewing, mostly centered on casting choices. If Tangled lands the same way Moana and Snow White did before it, Disney may find itself confronting a question it has largely avoided for over a decade: whether the built-in nostalgia of its animated library is still enough to guarantee a theatrical audience, or whether that advantage has quietly expired.
One factor working against Moana specifically was timing. Unlike earlier remakes that revisited films from the 1990s and early 2000s after decades of nostalgia had time to build, Moana arrived barely more than a year after Moana 2 dominated the box office. Rather than letting anticipation build, Disney asked audiences to pay for a third trip to the same story in short succession — all while a genuine cultural event, backed by one of the industry’s most bankable directors, was bearing down on the calendar behind it.
What This Means for You
If you were planning to catch Moana in theaters, you’ll likely have an easier time finding a showtime this week as screens shift toward The Odyssey‘s IMAX rollout. Anyone hoping to see Nolan’s film in 70MM should expect very limited availability given the reported sellouts, so booking early is worth doing if that specific format matters to you.
For Disney fans watching the bigger picture, this weekend may end up being remembered as the moment the studio’s live-action remake strategy faced its clearest test yet — not from critics or social media, but from a direct box office collision it couldn’t avoid.
What are your thoughts on whether Disney should halt the production of live-action remakes? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!
