Credit: DisneyDisney’s Snow White (2025) has been replaced in a ranking of recent live-action remake releases.
Disney’s live-action Moana (2026) has arrived in theaters, and the numbers are already telling a rough story. The film debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a 36% critic score, edging out Snow White (39%) for the dubious distinction of the studio’s lowest-rated live-action remake in recent memory.
That’s a notable marker given how bruising the Snow White rollout already was. That 2025 release, starring Rachel Zegler opposite Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen and directed by Marc Webb, spent years absorbing controversy — from casting disputes to backlash over changes to the story’s dwarven characters — before landing as one of Disney’s biggest box office disappointments in recent memory.
Many assumed the studio would slow down after that. Instead, Disney pushed forward with a live-action Tangled (2010) already in production from The Greatest Showman (2017) director Michael Gracey, starring Teagan Croft, Milo Manheim, Kathryn Hahn, and Diego Luna.
Moana was meant to be a steadier bet. Dwayne Johnson returns as Maui nearly a decade after voicing the character, also producing and calling the project personal, given its Polynesian roots. Thomas Kail, the Tony-winning director of Hamilton, helms his feature debut, working from a script by original writer Jared Bush and Dana Ledoux Miller, who promised “a real human vulnerability that will make it feel fresh.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Mark Mancina return for the music. Catherine Laga’aia debuts as Moana, while original voice star Auli’i Cravalho stepped back into an executive producer role, citing the importance of accurate casting. John Tui, Frankie Adams, and Rena Owen round out a cast reflecting Disney’s push for Pacific Island representation.
Even with that pedigree, pre-release sentiment had already soured. A Global Box Office post on X reported: “MOANA live-action remake, starring Dwayne Johnson, has pre-sales bombing harder than expected. The projection for its domestic opening weekend is now down to $45M-$60M. With a budget of ~$200M, it is on track to become one of Disney’s biggest bombs.”
A minority pushed back, with one fan calling the animated original a “Disney+ goldmine” and predicting an $84 million opening that would top Minions & Monsters (2026). But louder voices dismissed the project outright — “no one asked for or wanted this movie,” one wrote — while others took aim at Johnson’s live-action Maui for looking too close to his animated counterpart. “Let this finally be the end of the live-action remake,” another commenter wrote, urging Disney to invest in “updated animation” instead. Some sympathy went toward Laga’aia herself, with one user saying they “feel bad for the girl playing Moana.”
The financial risk is steep. Moana 2 (2024) opened to $389 million globally across five days and finished its run at $1.059 billion — a benchmark that makes any stumble here look especially painful by comparison.
With critics now rating it below even Snow White, and audiences already primed for skepticism, Moana may end up as further proof that Disney’s live-action remake era is running out of road — even as Tangled continues moving forward behind it.
What are your thoughts on Disney’s live-action remake efforts? Should the company stop production? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!
