How Do You Solve an Opportunity Like Moana?

Moana perfectly exemplifies one of the lesser-covered, very specific reasons Disney would have decided to get into the streaming game. In 2016 the movie was very much a one-and-done scenario. A definitive success, of course, but at this stage Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS), and The Walt Disney Company as a whole, was on its most legendary streak. Let me set the scene…

In terms of original IP from WDAS, Tangled was the start of the studio’s resurgence with $580M global box office in 2010. Wreck-It Ralph brought in $496M in 2012. We’re all familiar with Frozen. Known for a long time internally as the “troubled snow queen movie,” when it hit cinemas in 2013, it blindsided the company, grossing nearly $1.3 billion and going on to become the household franchise we know and love. Big Hero 6 came next with nearly $650M in 2014. At the same time, Disney stablemate Pixar was also having a streak with brand new stories, Brave (2010, $554M) and Inside Out (2015, $850M)—let’s not talk about The Good Dinosaur (2015, $333M), everyone strikes out sometimes. WDAS would follow with a home run, Zootopia topping a billion again in 2016. Moana would come later that year, a strong $686M in global box office. Coco, again from Pixar, would hit with $796M a year later. Like I said, Moana was a definite success, but still needed to jostle on a bench with numerous other high achieving teammates…

When it’s spoiled by possession of the hottest content on the planet, with Marvel and Star Wars more than bringing up the rear, what’s a corporate media company to do? Launch a streaming service of course! Although looking back, with my Mouseketeer glasses cast aside, it seems clear that the streaming strategy must have been a headwind in this vast content output cycle from the get-go.

Why launch a streaming service though? Wasn’t it just that shower of upstarts at Netflix that was doing that? Netflix were right, and Iger could see it. Betting on broadband omnipresence and device ubiquity, digital delivery of TV being the norm was clear as day. This was sure to explode the cable business (hasn’t it just), but there is another excellent reason for Disney to be in a direct digital relationship with their consumers, fans and viewers… Franchise.

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Franchise is a way of life at Disney. They own many of the biggest media franchises in the world and are well adept at extracting value from these year after year after year. Do you know what had been historically tricky though? Demonstrating the ongoing value of legacy brands. Take The Little Mermaid for example. A beloved movie, the staple of many a millennial childhood (mine included). Instinctively no one would disagree with this, but instinct isn’t enough to get a master toy licensee to sign a minimum guarantee, or a retailer to list a line. This is challenging when you want to monetize an astonishingly wonderful film catalogue. Disney knew box office. They could track DVD sales, but once the DVD was in homes it was impossible to show how much it was being played. And as for consolidating ratings for fragmented distribution deals, forget about it!

That’s a key benefit of digital, quantifiability. “Let It Go” hit YouTube giving Disney at least one tangible reference point to show the ongoing appetite for Frozen. The type of data from a direct-to-consumer streaming service would take this exposition to the next level.

Disney+ was launched in 2019 as a global streaming service to evolve the Disney TV business. It was Painful (capital P) for content distribution and channel teams alike, but came with the helpful upside of being able to quantifiably demonstrate the potency of their IP in any market they sought to build a franchise business, which brings us to Moana.

On streaming, Moana would break the ceiling it set at box office to show its true lifetime value. In 2023, it would be the most streamed film in the US per Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings.

Recently, Bloomberg reported that the film is, in fact, the most streamed movie of all time on Disney+. Bigger than Frozen. Bigger than Star Wars. Bigger than Avengers. Maybe it’s the earworm soundtrack, Lin-Manuel Miranda at his finest. Maybe it’s the genuine and authentic themes of female empowerment in all their messy glory, the admonishment of Mansplaining Maui driving emotional growth as opposed to a macho meltdown. Maybe it’s the color palette and the sea and the sum of all these things: the rich warm feeling the movie gives you, like sunshine on your back. Whatever the reason, there is no company better placed to capitalize on connection with IP than Disney (as hilariously referenced in the below Honest Trailer).

All this leads us to now. Disney have had a rough few years, creatively, financially, perhaps even spiritually. Iger’s era upended. Was it Chapek? Was it COVID? Or was it the hubris of the belief that IP-driven content could be endlessly outputted and the audience would simply swallow it all up? That you could simultaneously milk both audience and creative and the founts would never run dry?

From the perspective of animated movies, there has also been an industry-wide crisis. The failure to launch of multiple new IPs, including Strange World and Wish from Walt Disney Animation Studios directly. Sequels and derivatives are mainly where it’s at. Pixar are back in the game with Inside Out 2. Could Moana 2 be WDAS’s glorious return to form? Would it even be in scope if the original hadn’t been such a runaway success on streaming?

It needs to deliver. Disney have a live-action Moana in the works for next year. If Moana 2 bombs, the audience is sure to throw that baby out with the bath water. In addition to this, Disney have a massive opportunity to grow the Moana IP into a longer return that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. That’s the whole point of franchise. The audience have voted with their engagement, streaming ratings have anointed Moana as something special and beloved. Advance ticket sales are confirming this too.

Scott Mendelson

at Puck is tracking Moana 2’s opening weekend at $135M (£ gifted link), convincingly outperforming Wicked, which sits at $90M.

One of the main things that could cause Moana 2 to come undone is that it has been diced together from a streaming series that was in development. Those seams might show in terms of story and character, and Lin-Manuel Miranda isn’t the one supplying a soundtrack that might have been depended on to paper the cracks. Come on Disney, you’ve got to do good on the opportunity of Moana. It stands, like a plucky young heroine against the sea, ready to jump to the next level of success. My esteemed colleague Simon Pulman is predicting $1.5B at box office.  My concern about the development origins has me far less bullish.  As a movie and a franchise I utterly adore, my simple ask of Disney is…