Aloha, Moana. (The hello kind.)
Disney released a teaser trailer (below) for “Moana 2” on May 29. Our princess of Motunui is still out there voyaging, still drumming with her dead ancestors, still battling coconuts — it honestly just looks like additional “Moana” footage. That’s not automatically a bad thing. Also, it’s not yet the trailer trailer, so we’ll cut it a break — especially considering the feature film‘s own origin story.
“Moana 2” was originally planned as a Disney+ series. Well, upgrade. Now a proper sequel, “Moana 2” welcomes back Auli’i Cravalho (as Moana), Dwayne Johnson as Maui, Nicole Scherzinger as Sina, and Temuera Morrison as Chief Tai.
Also an “upgrade” is Maui’s “boat snack” — the pig, Pua, has joined Heihei the chicken on Moana’s boat. Johnson gets the big joke of the teaser trailer: “Bacon and eggs!?! Why didn’t you bring the pig last time?”
Ahead of last month’s CinemaCon 2024, Disney delayed the release of its live-action “Moana” to make a little more space for the animated “Moana 2” at the end of 2024. The live-action “Moana” will now open in theaters on July 10, 2026, delayed from June 2025; Cravalho and The Rock are doing that one, too.
It’s not been the only shakeup at Disney. Bob Iger has been stressing “quality over quantity” in his second Disney stint, but animation fans won’t be shortchanged on the quantity end either — especially in terms of sequels. Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” will open in theaters on June 19, 2026, Disney also announced last week. Its “Inside Out 2” will arrive this summer on June 14. Also coming are “Frozen 3” and “Frozen 4,” as well as “Zootopia 2.”
The sequel strategy makes sense, because it makes dollars. Both existing “Frozen” films and the latest two “Toy Story” movies are among the Top 40-grossing movies of all time, worldwide and not adjusted for inflation. Even “Zootopia” made more than a billion bucks.
Disney had a trio of theatrical debuts for animated movies in the first quarter of 2024. Problem is, they are movies that had already been on Disney+ for years. “Soul,” “Luca,” and “Turning Red” were — to varying degrees — COVID casualties (with a little mismanagement mixed in). Better late than never, we suppose — and it probably informed the “Moana 2” audible.
Watch the trailer here:
