How ‘Moana 2' charted a course back to the big screen

NEW YORK (AP) — When you look at some of the numbers, it’s hard to believe “Moana 2” was ever going to be anything but a movie.

When the teaser trailer for “Moana 2” dropped in May, it was watched 178 million times in 24 hours. That’s more than “Inside Out 2,” more than “Frozen 2,” more than any animated Disney movie before.

A veritable ocean’s worth of anticipation is awaiting the sequel to 2016’s “Moana,” all proof that one of the more dramatic pivots in recent Walt Disney Co. history is paying off, big time. “Moana 2” was originally intended to be a streaming series. Now, it’s steering toward being one of the fall’s biggest blockbusters. What can you say except you’re welcome?

When Bob Iger returned as chief executive of Disney in late 2022, one of his top priorities was shifting away from putting the studio’s most prized assets onto streaming. He wanted to put the focus back on the big screen — and all the ancillary benefits (including merchandizing and streaming) that follow after.

The series that directors David Derrick Jr. and Jason Hand had worked on for more than a year would become “Moana 2.” The movie, which also added Dana Ledoux Miller as a director and co-writer, was only announced earlier this year. It’s opening Nov. 27.

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“It became all hands on board,” Derrick says. “There’s a saying in Samoa: ‘All together or not at all.’”

Derrick and Hand, both veteran storyboard artists at Disney, had effectively done their job too well. Their work convinced Disney executives to put the studio’s full weight behind a theatrical film, even though a live-action “Moana” remained in development. (That movie, directed by Thomas Kail, is set to open in July 2026.)

“We developed the world, we developed the over-arching story that we’re still telling,” says Derrick. “We would screen it in our big theater the way we watch all of us our projects here. There was a groundswelling, unanimous concert of everyone saying this needs to be on the big screen.”

“It was always going to be big,” adds Hand. “It just kept on getting bigger.”

“Moana 2” was at the nexus of a major shift for Disney and for Hollywood in calculating how to weigh theatrical and streaming. Different studios have different strategies and those are still evolving. But after rushing to throw as much content as possible on streaming services, companies like Disney began to rethink their approach.

This year, Disney has regained its box-office swagger, led by a pair of $1 billion films in “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool vs. Wolverine.” “Moana 2” could make it three. But however well “Moana 2” does, it’s not likely to hurt its appeal once it begins streaming. The most popular film on Disney+ last year? “Moana.”

“We always felt that it deserved to be on the big screen” says Hand. “It’s the best way to tell a story.”

But the shift for “Moana 2,” which returns Auli’i Cravalho as the voice of Moana and Dwayne Johnson as the voice of Maui, wasn’t easy. First of all, that meant living up to the standard of the first film — one that Miller, who is of Samoan heritage, considers groundbreaking for its Pacific Islander representation.

“I knew as a writer that movie was going to change what was possible,” says Miller. “It was going to change the way when I walk into a room I was going to be able to pitch a story because people had a new understanding of what it meant to be of the Pacific.”

Miller, who founded the organization PEAK (Pasifika Entertainment Advancement Komiti) as a way for Pasifika people to find community in Hollywood, is also a writer on the live-action “Moana.” “My world has become all Moana all the time,” she says, laughing.

Both films, the directors say, developed alongside each other, with many connections and shared cultural consultants.

Set three years after the original film, “Moana 2” finds Moana again forced to head across the Pacific on an ocean adventure. But this time, she’s traveling with a crew, in a new canoe, and carrying new responsibilities. That includes her younger sister, Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda).

“The way the first film connected her to her past, she’s now connecting everyone to the future,” says Derrick. “So we added and created all these new characters when it was in series and we got to know them in a deep way.”

Hand compares the series development to a workshop for the new characters.

“Yes, it was a massive undertaking — probably more so than what we initially imagined,” Hand says. “But ultimately we were telling that same story. A lot of stuff that went by the wayside just naturally helped the story be its proper fighting weight.”

Now, Moana is joined by a wayfinding crew that includes the characters Loto (Rose Matafeo), an engineer; Kele (David Fane), a grumpy farmer; and Moni (Hualālai Chung), a historian and storyteller.

“What people don’t realize is that the people in the Pacific found the last discoverable land on Earth,” says Derrick, who also has ancestral ties to Samoa. “They created the largest cultural ethnosphere in the world prior to westward expansion — one third of the Earth, all through the art and spirituality and science of wayfinding. So for me, it’s very important that each one of these crew members display that Indigenous genius that it took.”

Honoring such things tends to resonate much differently in a movie theater than it does on a television. The makers of “Moana 2” are still rushing to get their film ready for cinemas, with all the spectacle and music they can fit into it. But they know their young Polynesian protagonist will be seen big.

“When I watched the first film, I was pregnant with my first child,” Miller says. “I thought to myself as I was watching it: The world will be forever different because of this movie. My child will never not know a world where they are not seen on the biggest stage.”