u/UsedVillage9022

At the moment, the live-action Moana is projected to open somewhere between $60M and $80M at the domestic box office, roughly in the same range as Minions and Monsters. I’d be surprised if it opens higher than Minions.

The first Moana opened to $56M, while Moana 2—despite the controversy surrounding its origins as a low-budget Disney+ series that was reworked into a theatrical film—opened to an impressive $139M after a nine-year gap. It ultimately crossed $1 billion worldwide, even with Wicked as direct competition.
That said, both of those films were released in November. November tends to be a less crowded month than june or July, and the Thanksgiving holiday gives family movie a major boost at the box office. Disney has traditionally had a lot of success releasing major animated family films during that corridor—just look at the Frozen movies.

So it’s a pretty strange decision. Right now, the summer is already packed with major releases. Toy Story will likely still have strong legs, Minions is about to open and will serve as direct family competition, and Spider-Man is expected to dominate the worldwide box office just a couple of weeks later. So how is Moana supposed to coexist with all of these releases? Especially considering that it’ll probably lose most of its premium screens in its second weekend.

Part of me thinks Disney should’ve made the tough decision to let Hexed flop and move it to the following spring instead. That would’ve given Moana a longer marketing campaign and a much better opportunity to maximize its box office potential.
November is relatively light on competition, with only The Hunger Games and Meet the Fockers scheduled. Realistically, Hexed would’ve had a much harder time surviving there than Moana would have.

Or maybe Moana should’ve taken The Mandalorian & Grogu‘s release date instead. Considering that Lilo & Stitch crossed $1 billion worldwide last year after opening in that same late-May corridor, Moana probably would’ve had a better chance of attracting the family audience than The Mandalorian & Grogu. It also likely would’ve held up better against films like Obsession and Backrooms than it will against the crowded summer slate.

Part of me thinks this was Dwayne Johnson being overconfident. Part of me thinks Disney should’ve questioned whether releasing another one of its own family movies just a few weeks after the next Toy Story installment was the right move. And part of me wonders if they were simply caught off guard by just how crowded the summer marketplace ended up becoming.

What do you guys think?

I’m seeing like three posts in a single day about how Supergirl supposedly didn’t connect with audiences, and all those posts and comments are basically saying, “We should throw this universe that’s only just beginning with its second movie in the trash.” But, like, did that happen in 2008?
Because when The Incredible Hulk came out and disappointed both critically and at the box office, there were never these kinds of industry-wide conversations about scrapping everything they were doing, even though we’re talking about a movie that Kevin Feige himself seems to prefer not to mention nowadays.

I don't know about all this internet doomerism right now—yes, Supergirl is a black mark that shouldn't have happened—but some of you need to stop thinking that everything that's being built right now is being wiped clean and starting from scratch.