The live-action remake of Moana is coming to theaters, and Disney is hoping for another huge success following its billion-dollar box office champion, Lilo & Stitch. While a lot of vocal complaints arrived on social media about the live-action remakes, these movies keep getting made because they have a massive audience. The online detractors are a clear minority among the people who actually pay for tickets to see these movies, so they continue to get pumped out.
The movies have been successful since the original Alice in Wonderland live-action remake. While some of them are truly magnificent recreations, such as The Jungle Book, others leave a lot to be desired. However, even the movies that didn’t get critical praise, like the 2019 Lion King live-action remake (52% on Rotten Tomatoes), still made $1.6 billion worldwide.
Lilo & Stitch proved that in 2025, when people complained it brought nothing new to the franchise, but it still went on to make $1.03 billion worldwide. The same year, DreamWorks animated movie How to Train Your Dragon received a remake that changed almost nothing from the original film and still made $636 million worldwide. Both were success stories, but Disney wants Moana to reach Lilo & Stitch levels, which might be impossible.
Lilo & Stitch Was A Billion Dollar Live-Action Remake
Lilo & Stitch was a shocking success story, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who loves that franchise. The remake seemed unnecessary because Stitch is animated in both films, but there is more to this than just the little destructive alien. Lilo & Stitch is a movie that speaks to anyone who sees themselves as an awkward outsider, especially among the young girls in the audience. This live-action movie knocked it out of the park with Maia Kealoha cast as Lilo, and she helped sell this remake.
While that was a big deal, there was one other thing that helped Lilo & Stitch dominate the box office. It hit theaters on May 23, 2025. That was Memorial Day weekend, so it got a long weekend head start, and its only competition was Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which underperformed. This was also the only movie that weekend for families, with the only other competition being A Minecraft Movie, which was in its eighth weekend.
Even better was that competition was slow in coming. The next weekend saw Karate Kid: Legends, which also underperformed, and Lilo & Stitch stayed in first place for a second week. It didn’t get any real competition for family moviegoers until June 13, when the How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake came out. Also, if anyone wonders why that movie didn’t make more money, it was competing with Lilo & Stitch, while Pixar’s Elio came out one week later.
Moana Live-Action Remake Faces Stacked Family Movie Summer
While Disney wants Moana to get Lilo & Stitch numbers, it could face the problems that How to Train Your Dragon faced. In fact, Moana has even more competition than that movie did last year. The competition that is already in theaters is massive. Toy Story 5 has been in theaters for three weeks, and it still made $31 million in its third weekend domestically. It was strong enough to beat out Supergirl in its first weekend.
However, there is another animated movie that won at the box office this weekend, with Minions & Monsters taking first place with $36.4 million. This is one of the best-reviewed movies in that franchise in years, and every movie in the franchise has come close to $1 billion. Thanks to Toy Story 5, there is a chance it won’t hit those levels, but it is still competition for families’ eyes.
Can Moana survive a box office that has it coming up against a still strong Toy Story 5 and a freshly released Minions & Monsters? It will make money, and it will likely hit number one on its opening weekend. Its only competition is Evil Dead Burn, and that is an entirely different audience. However, it will die the next weekend when Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hits theaters. By the time Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on July 31, Moana will be finished.
With two big-name animated movies already in theaters, and two movies that have a chance to hit $1 billion each coming out in the next few weeks, Moana’s window is limited, and its chance of hitting Lilo & Stitch numbers is limited. As with other big-budget blockbusters in 2026, the summer has just been too jam-packed to survive a slow start.
- Release Date
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July 10, 2026
- Runtime
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120 Minutes
- Director
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Thomas Kail
