Moana 2’s worldwide box office revenue exceeded $600 million, and the animated hit solidified a new era of smooth sailing for Disney. After a rough year in 2022 and 2023, the film is likely to become the studio’s third-highest grossing film of the year, behind “Inside Head 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
But while Disney’s box office resurgence has determined much of the company’s story in 2024, the focus on theaters has caused the Mouse House’s most important triumphs of its comeback year to be forgotten.
The victory is that Disney has finally mastered the dual management of its theatrical and streaming businesses to the benefit of both parties, giving its IP the power to influence consumers large and small. As long as the mouse continues to do so, it has been confirmed that it will take over. At the table of the next era of media history.
To accomplish this, CEO Bob Iger did a great job of creating one key axis. The idea was to follow the advice VIP+ offered last year to stop turning theatrical IP into streaming series.
“Even the most successful ones, there is always limited financial return from big-budget streaming series,” I wrote at the time, and also wrote: SVOD viewership. ”
Therefore, the analyst went on to warn Iger that the company should “stop trying to use expensive IP-based programming to appeal to Disney+ and instead mine its theatrical library.” .
“Moana 2” is perhaps the crowning achievement of this strategic axis. The sequel was originally developed as a Disney+ series, but changed direction a few months before its November release. This move seems risky until you realize that the prequel has quietly become one of Disney’s most valuable content assets.
The original Moana, released in 2016 and grossing less than $700 million worldwide, has consistently been one of the most streamed titles on Disney+ since the platform’s launch. According to Nielsen, the film has ranked in the top five most streamed movies in the U.S. every year since 2020, and last year ranked ahead of Super Mario Bros. Movie and Pixar’s Elemental, which will be released in 2023. It took the top spot, beating out other released movies. ”
“Since Nielsen began measuring streaming, viewers have watched nearly 80 billion minutes of ‘Moana,’ which equates to 775 million views of the entire movie,” the data firm said at the end of 2023. This is pointed out in the report.
And this movie is very likely to achieve repeat performance. “Moana” has appeared on Nielsen’s weekly list of the top 10 most streamed movies nearly every week for the first three quarters of 2024, and the sequel should help boost viewership. The rest of Q4.
Considering this, a follow-up to the “Moana” streaming series might not have seemed the most obvious thing. But by pivoting to theatrical sequels, Disney’s leadership has finally learned that Disney+’s greatest strength lies not in its original series, but in serving as a gateway to Disney’s content catalog. I did.
“Moana” isn’t the only theatrical film to garner significant attention on the platform, with another Disney animated musical, “Encanto,” also coming in at No. 2 on Nielsen’s 2023 list. In fact, more than half of that list is made up of Disney theatrical films, and only one, the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” made it into the top 10 streaming originals of the year.
And while library titles like “Moana” and “Frozen” generate big engagement, as Iger himself acknowledged last year, most new Disney and 20th Century Studios movies stream exclusively on Disney+. This ability is a major viewership driver for the platform.
“What we’ve really come to appreciate recently is the performance of our big-title movies, so-called pay-one-window movies, on the (Disney+) service,” the CEO said in an earnings conference. said. “The numbers are huge. Certainly, when competing with Netflix, it’s a differentiator for us.”
So by reconfiguring the “Moana” series into “Moana 2,” Disney created a win-win situation for itself. Huge theatrical revenue and likely “huge” Disney+ involvement if the sequel is available for streaming will bring repeats (and repeats). (repeatedly) With young children watching, Moana 2, like its predecessor, is likely to drive ratings for years to come.
Meanwhile, budgets for streaming series have reportedly become tighter under Iger. In an interview with Variety, a Marvel Studios executive called this year’s “Agatha All Along” Marvel’s “least expensive show.” And while Iger has yet to follow through on my advice to pursue more “singles and doubles” on the film side, i.e., low-cost projects with an easy path to profitability, this post It seems to be becoming the default strategy for television. The heyday of television.
After all, one of the biggest success stories under the Disney umbrella over the past few years has been “The Bear,” a relatively lo-fi, low-cost series. According to Luminate Film & TV, the budget for each episode will be around $3 million to $5 million, about one-third of the cost of a season of “The Mandalorian.”
And it’s only recently that Disney’s patented flywheel has begun to translate success from streaming back into theaters, with the series’ big-screen version of The Mandalorian and Grogu just entering production this year. So it’s clear that the pipeline from theaters to streaming is well underway. This is the studio’s best bet for maximizing the value of high-cost productions.
In that regard, much like its adventurous protagonist, we don’t know how far Moana 2 will go.
