The original Moana was considered a pretty good movie back in 2016, and Disney being Disney, you can get why it decided to expand it into a franchise with a sequel and live-action remake. But if you thought it was just a standard good Disney movie with a lot of merch and cameos in other movies, you’d be a little bit wrong. Turns out, it’s actually been doing amazingly well on streaming for a long time, and it’s got the metrics to prove it.
A recent Bloomberg report reveals that since it launched alongside Disney+ in November 2019, and with an extra boost thanks to the early days of the pandemic, Moana’s ended up as Disney’s most-streamed movie of all time. Numbers-wise, audiences have watched 80 billion minutes worth of it, which equates to watching it 748 million times. Further Nielsen data shows it’s also been one of the four most-watched films on any streaming service on a yearly basis for the past half-decade, and for 2024 specifically, it’s been somewhere in the streaming Top 10 every month thus far. Add on the $687.2 million box office during its theatrical run, and it’s safe to say a lot of people looooooove this movie.
What this means for Moana 2 is that it’s likely going to have a massive theatrical run in a few weeks. Box office analysts believe it’ll open to $135 million in North America during the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, further spurred by Fandango reporting it has the biggest first-day ticket presales of any animated film in 2024, the $1.697 billion-hit Inside Out 2 included. AMC CEO Adam Aron further stoked those flames during a recent investor call when he mentioned hearing scuttlebutt that it’ll “eclipse and outshine even the success of Inside Out 2.”
Some of Disney’s biggest animated movies hit during Thanksgiving weekend, Moana included. Even with other big movies hitting this season like Wicked and Gladiator II, it’s likely Moana 2’s going to make waves when hits theaters on November 27.
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