Disney’s animated film “Moana” will get a sequel this year. And the new, insanely beautiful trailer shows: This will be a must for the whole family.
In 2016, the world was still in order for Disney: Four of the 13 films released by the gigantic entertainment giant that year grossed over a billion US dollars worldwide (“Zoomania”, “The First Avenger: Civil War”, “Finding Dory”, “Rogue One – A Star Wars Story”). These films were able to absorb the few box office flops – also due to the strength of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the “Star Wars” universe at the time. The animated film “Moana” was also crowned with success with a worldwide box office result of around 700 million US dollars.
Then followed the – probably to be expected – low: The audience’s enthusiasm for Marvel films declined significantly, the “Star Wars” franchise is still taking a creative break from the big screen and even the once so accurate animated film departments of Disney and Pixar were no longer able to attract the very large audience with “Wish” and “Elemental”.
In the meantime, the skies over Disney have cleared up again under the renewed leadership of CEO Robert “Bob” Iger: With “Upside Down 2”, the entertainment company is at the top of this year’s most successful films with 1.56 billion US dollars, and “Deadpool & Wolverine”, the only film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) for 2024, is also likely to reach the magic sound barrier of one billion US dollars shortly. The momentum wants to be maintained. And this is to be ensured by another sequel to a successful animated film: “Moana 2” was only surprisingly announced at the beginning of the year.
An animated film out of nowhere? Even though hundreds of employees sometimes work on it for months? Not quite. As the CEO of the Walt Disney Company has revealed, it was originally supposed to become an animated series – for the in-house streaming service Disney+. In the end, however, the quality must have been so convincing that those responsible decided to produce a sequel for the cinema directly from it. Especially since the first film on Disney+ also has high access figures. And the sequel is scheduled to be released in cinemas as early as 27 November 2024 (USA):
“‘Moana’ is still an incredibly popular franchise; and we can’t wait to show you more of Moana and Maui when ‘Moana 2’ hits theaters in November.”
What we can expect in the sequel is shown in the brand new trailer, which was unveiled during the D23:
Live-action film adaptation with Dwayne Johnson still in production
“Moana 2” is directed by David G. Derrick Jr., who was already part of the originally planned animated series. He has worked on animated films such as “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Raya and the Last Dragon” and is making his directorial debut with “Moana 2“. This time, Moana receives a message from her ancestors that leads her and demigod Maui on a dangerous adventure across forgotten waters.
This announcement is also interesting insofar as Disney has been working with Dwayne Johnson on a live-action film adaptation of the first animated film for some time. The announcement was made about a year ago. This has a US launch date of June 27, 2025. Johnson had lent his voice to Maui in the English original. Fortunately, the live-action adaptation does not stand in the way of Johnson’s participation in “Moana 2”: He will once again set Maui to music.