Moana 2 celebrates pan-Pacific, pan-Polynesian culture

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The film is expected to make $145 million over Thanksgiving weekend

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New music from Grammy-winning duo Barlow and Bear

by Danielle Broadway

KOLEEI, Hawaii – For Auli’i Cravalho, returning for Walt Disney’s sequel film ‘Moana 2’ was a Hawaiian homecoming both as an actor and for his character.

“Moana’s journey will take her far, but growth also means coming back home and experiencing it with her community,” the Hawaii native told Reuters.

“In terms of community, the connection of all the Pacific people, it feels like a celebration of pan-Pacific, pan-Polynesian culture,” he said.

For the cast and creators of “Moana 2,” the project wasn’t just professional, it was personal.

“It feels so incredible that my growth as a human being seems to coincide with his,” Cravalho said.

“Moana 2,” directed by David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand and Dana LeDoux Miller, will be released on Wednesday.

National Research Group, the film-research arm of Nielsen, estimates that “Moana 2” will gross $145 million over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend.

The film centers on the pioneer Moana, who receives a sudden call from her pioneer ancestors to travel across the ocean and break the curse of the god Nalo, which prevents the people of the different islands from being reunited.

She forms her own crew, which reunites her with the demigod Maui, played by Dwayne Johnson.

The music for the first “Moana” was written by “Encanto” songwriter Lin Manuel Miranda, while the sequel features songwriting duo Abigail Barlow and Emily Beare.

The pair, who rose to fame on TikTok, won a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical,” attracting a lawsuit from Netflix. This also created an opportunity to source songs for the sequel.

While they wanted to “pay homage to the beautiful world” of the first “Moana” with the music, they also aimed to add their own “flavor” to it.

Part of the ethos of the entire film was to figure out how to incorporate even more Pacific Islander culture into all aspects of the sequel, which was important to the director trio.

LeDoux Miller said, “I think it’s so special that we get to celebrate Pacifica in these movies, and we get a heroine who is so compelling and sympathetic and wonderful and weird and goofy.”

“I think we can see a little bit of ourselves in that,” said the Samoan director, adding that many Pacific Islander communities share the same values ​​of family and togetherness that Moana has.

For the directors, it was about going on “a new adventure with old friends” and striking a balance between familiarity and something entirely new.

The film is highly anticipated after Disney’s other 2024 animated sequel “Inside Out 2” crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office less than three weeks after its release, the most for any animated film in history. Has reached that level in the fastest time.

The first “Moana” also had box office success, earning $81.1 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday period and $55.5 million for the weekend, topping 2016’s box office numbers.

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