Disney's Moana to get live-action update, with Dwayne Johnson revealing details in post from Hawaii

Disney’s predilection towards live-action adaptations of their classic animated films has once again struck over the weekend, with Dwayne “aka The Rock” Johnson revealing that 2016’s Moana will be brought to life once again on the big screen - with Johnson himself set to reprise the role of Maui. The new film will be produced by Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia through their Seven Bucks Productions and Beau Flynn via Flynn Picture Co.

Executive producers include Auli‘i Cravalho, the voice of Moana in the original film, and Scott Sheldon of Flynn Picture Co. Jared Bush and Samoan industry leader Dana Ledoux Miller will also take part in the production, though there has been no confirmation that Cravalho will return as the Disney Princess the film it is titled from. The announcement was made by Johnson at Disney’s shareholder meeting on Monday, complete with a jovial Johnson revealing the news to the public through Twitter.

“Humbled to say we’re bringing Moana’s beautiful story to the live-action big screen! Maui changed my life (miss you grandpa) and I’m honoured to partner with Disney to tell our story through the realm of music and dance, which at the core is who we are as Polynesian people,” Johnson tweeted. “I’m deeply humbled and overcome with gratitude to bring the beautiful story of ‘Moana’ to the live-action big screen. This story is my culture, and this story is emblematic of our people’s grace and warrior strength."

“I wear this culture proudly on my skin and in my soul,” Johnson later revealed in a statement to the media,  “and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reunite with Maui, inspired by the mana and spirit of my late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia, is one that runs very deep for me. I want to thank my partners at Disney for their strong commitment to this special endeavour, because there is no better world for us to honour the story of our people, our passion and our purpose than through the realm of music and dance, which is at the core of who we are as Polynesian people.”

Moana, upon its first release in cinema, raked in for Disney a box office total of $680 million USD and earned two Academy Award nominations at the 2017 ceremony; Best Original Song for “How Far I'll Go" by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Best Animated Picture. Given Disney’s ability to turn even the most terrifying of animated creatures into “reality,” we’ll be interested to see how Tamatoa, voiced by Flight of the Conchords' Jermaine Clement, will look in a live-action adaptation.

Are the live action adaptations of Disney classics money earners?

Two questions on the lips of everyone this morning after the news will no doubt be “do we need this,” followed hopefully shortly with “but are they profitable or a cheap cash in?”

There have been 19 live-action Disney adaptations of their properties, dating back to 1994 when a young Jason Scott Lee took the role of Mowgli in The Jungle Book, followed two years later with Glenn Close playing the diabolical fashion designer Cruella DeVil in 101 Dalmatians. But with some adaptations falling flat in terms of fandom appeal, is a Moana live-action adaptation potentially lucrative, or is it going back to well once too often?

We’ve plotted our graph by omitting two titles that went direct to streaming, so had no worldwide box office figures, and you can see two very big increases in box office numbers for both The Lion King in 2019 and Beauty and The Beast in 2017 - two very strongly marketed works at the time. However, there has been a steady drop in box office figures shortly after the release of The Lion King - perhaps once we had lifelike animals talking in English, we’d seen it all?