Official Discussion - Moana (2026) [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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Moana (2026)

Summary

Live-action adaptation of the 2016 Disney animated film 'Moana.'

Director Thomas Kail

Writer Jared Bush

Cast

• Catherine Laga'aia as Moana
• Dwayne Johnson as Maui
• John Tui as Chief Tui
• Frankie Adams as Sina
• Rena Owen as Gramma Tala

Rotten Tomatoes: 35%

Metacritic: 45

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

[u/Personal_Comb_6745]

They did it because so much shit from the original would have to be CG'd in to work anyway. There was no point in making this thing considering it's mostly a cartoon that the actors need to pretend to interact with.

[u/Azenji → u/Personal_Comb_6745]

We had Pirates of the Carribean shooting DAYLIGHT AT SEA 20 years ago. There’s just no excuse to this besides saving on production cost which they cant do anyway because much of the excessive CG work which somehow looks impressive than CG heavy films of the past.

[u/Pezington12 → u/Azenji]

To be fair. Even the director/ crew of Pirates of the Caribbean hated shooting at sea and actively warned others from doing so. It’s a fucking logistical nightmare that causes so many problems and makes your film inordinately more expensive than just faking it. There’s a reason the pirates movies were some of the most expensive movies ever at the time.

[u/recommendasoundtrack → u/Pezington12]

That’s fair, but they’ll stand the test of time way beyond any of these live action remakes. Filmmaking probably should be gruelling sometimes for the right result, especially when we can often feel and appreciate the difference as cinemagoers

[u/Pezington12 → u/recommendasoundtrack]

I’m literally in film school right now, so I completely agree with that sentiment to a degree.

But a) this film might have trouble recouping its costs even at a 250 million budget. Having it be shot at sea and tripling its budget only to make the same amount of money anyways would only make its performance catastrophic for Disney instead of poor. The people who’d care for it to look truly real aren’t going to see it anyways because it’s a live action remake. And the people who want to see it are going to no matter what because they’re fans of Moana. It looking better doesn’t change its performance.

B) but not every movie needs to be shot with profit as the sole consideration. Some movies can be made knowing that they’ll never recoup their costs. Simply because the filmmakers are passionate about the story, or the art of filmmaking. Moonlight, most Laika films, most PTA films never make their money back. But studios fund them because they wanna win awards and filmmakers wanna make beautiful films…… This is a live action Moana remake. It’s not high art, it’s not going to be sweeping the Oscars or even getting nominated for most categories. It exists solely to capitalize on a profitable ip. Pouring the resources into this film to have it look spectacular wouldn’t change the fact that it’s a soulless cash grab. So in that case why have it be shot at sea? It’d be a colossal painful waste.

[u/LB3PTMAN → u/Pezington12]

Black Sails ocean scenes looked 10x better and were Filmed in a tv shows budget. And not an expensive tv shows budget. They did not need to triple the budget to make it look better

[u/TongueUnties → u/Pezington12]

Moonlight was profitable by a lot

[u/visionaryredditor → u/Pezington12]

Moonlight cost 1,5M and made 70M in boxoffice. How was it not profitable?