'Moana' Disney+ Series Has Become Sequel Film 'Moana 2', Releasing In November

Surprise! Guess this is how far Disney will go to get its money back

Walt Disney Animation Studios has finally announced its November 2024 theatrical film, and they’re saying you’re welcome by bringing back Maui and Moana. Disney CEO Bob Iger has revealed that the Disney+ Moana series announced in December 2020 has been reformatted into Moana 2, and is Walt Disney Animation Studios’s theatrical 2024 film, currently scheduled for November 27.

The film had briefly seemingly disappeared from the theatrical release schedule but had resurfaced in an updated listing. “Moana remains an incredibly popular franchise,” Iger said, “and we can’t wait to give you more of Moana and Maui when Moana 2 comes to theaters this November.” The movie is being produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Canadian outpost, who was also working on the Tiana series things have been quiet about lately. The first film, directed by John Musker and Ron Clements and starring Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, released on the equivalent weekend in 2016, crossed 1 billion minutes of viewing on Disney+ last year. And that’s the total count for the year alone, not cumulative across Disney+’s 4+-year life.

It’s been said that the episodes were coming back and seen as so good that the company went into a several-months debate that resulted in this decision. The first look announcement was released publicly, essentially serving as its teaser trailer. The YouTube description came equipped with a synopsis that teases a reads: “After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.”

Presumably because of its origins as a TV series worked on by a different team, the attached names are very different. Dave Derrick Jr. directs with music by Grammy winners Mark Mancina, Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, and Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa’i, instead of Lin-Manuel Miranda. The live-action remake, where Johnson is confirmed to be reprising the role of Maui, as both he and Cravalho are assumed to for the now-sequel, is still planned for release just eight months later on June 27, 2025. Yeah it’s quite bizarre that the remake of a film less than a decade old is coming less than a year after the sequel in the original medium. This is the third Disney+ series to be transformed into a movie, following Marvel’s Armor Wars, and Star Wars’s Lando series, neither of which are dated. Watch the first look below.

Sources: Deadline, The Wrap