'Moana' loses its way at the box office with a $43-million domestic opening

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Set us as preferred Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana” lost its way at the box office this weekend as the company’s latest live-action remake opened to a sluggish $43 million in the U.S.and Canada.The domestic haul for “Moana” underperformed studio expectations, which ranged from $60 million to $65 million.

Globally, the film brought in a total of $95 million on a production budget of about $250 million.Despite its lackluster debut, the film still came in first at the box office during a weekend where it had few new competitors in the family film space.The “Moana” franchise has been a box-office and streaming juggernaut.The original 2016 animated movie brought in more than $643 million worldwide and is the most-watched movie on Disney+, while a 2024 sequel grossed more than $1 billion at the global box office.

On the merchandise side, more than 22 million “Moana”-themed toys have been sold.“Moana” also appears in the Disney theme parks.But the theatrical reception for the live-action film may signal that audiences think there’s been too much “Moana” in just 10 years.

(The 2024 film sequel was originally set to be a streaming series before it was moved to Disney’s theatrical calendar.)Most of Disney’s previous live-action remakes have come decades after the original animated movie, such as 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” which arrived 23 years after its animated predecessor and grossed more than $1 billion in worldwide box office receipts.The theatrical haul for the latest “Moana” may also have suffered from poor reviews — the film got a 34% on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with several critics highlighting its nearly frame-by-frame similarity to the original film.The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, however, was 90%.Still, as the last of this summer’s major family films, “Moana” could ...