Disney’s Cheapie Sequels of 2024

Last week at an earnings call, Bob Iger announced Disney was releasing Moana 2, and that it was coming to theaters this November. That sounds like an awful quick turnaround for an animated movie to go from announcement to theatrical distribution until you catch the detail that Moana 2 is a retrofitted sequel. Disney’s original plan was to have a Moana series on Disney+, but now that they desperately need a theatrical hit after a lousy 2023, they’re turning the show into a movie. While studios sometimes shuttle films intended for streaming into theatrical release (and vice-versa), it’s rare to see an animated feature arise out of what was intended as a streaming series. 

Look closer and you can see that while Disney may be willing to invest in expanding Moana from a show to a movie, fans shouldn’t expect the same core team of talent. Directors John Musker and Ron Clements (Disney veterans who also helmed The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog) are out, as is songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda. The press release makes no mention of stars Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson, but presumably Disney will try to lure them back?

That’s certainly not a given when you look over at the studio’s other major animated film of 2024, Inside Out 2. The Pixar sequel will look at a teenage Riley dealing with a mess of new emotions conflicting with the core five from the first movie. However, while Fear and Disgust will be back, they won’t be voiced by Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling, respectively. Amy Poehler was offered a fat paycheck to return as Joy, but Hader and Kaling, who are successful talents in their own right, were only offered $100,000. Even after Disney slightly upped the offer, the actors still walked as Disney is reportedly going cheap on voice talent.

What you can see from these movies is that Disney cannot quit their addiction to sequels, but now they want to pay less for the talent behind them in the hopes they can sneak the film past the audience without anyone noticing. It’s like releasing The Return of Jafar on 3,000 screens because you’re so desperate for a hit. Sure, there may be a hit in the short term, but it’s the same kind of short-term thinking that’s infecting so many industries right now—where you only need to look as far as the next earnings call. Disney is basically saying that their audience will line up for any theatrical sequel—despite overwhelming evidence that, no, actually, they won’t.

To be fair, hits aren’t guaranteed. Frozen II brought back all of its core talent, and it’s a disappointing movie. However, it made slightly more than the first movie, earning $1.4 billion worldwide to the original’s $1.3 billion. There was enough of a long tail on the movie that people went back again and again. Perhaps Disney thinks that audiences won’t mind if they swap out a few voice actors on Inside Out 2 or if the music in Moana 2 doesn’t sound like the music in the first movie. Perhaps they’re right. After all, there’s a dearth of movies for kids, and scarcity creates demand, I suppose. And yet Disney’s whole brand is about a quality experience. They may not be successful every time, but they’re supposed to have the resources to make sure audiences know that the studio doesn’t phone in their theatrical releases. 

But in 2024, Disney will continue to try and weather a bad storm of their own making. They’re rushing out a Moanasequel because they need a sequel to a hit film. They only have one Marvel movie coming out. They have zero Star Wars movies hitting theaters, because apparently they decided to stop making those after 2019. While it would be nice to think that Mufasa: The Lion King will be a big hit, I’m not sure a “live-action” Lion King prequel is going to win people over—even if it’s from Moonlight director Barry Jenkins.

Maybe if Disney and other studios hadn’t dug in their heels on strikes they had already lost, they wouldn’t be in this situation. Unfortunately, the ones who will pay won’t be the executives, but audiences, who are likely in for some disappointing sequels.