![Dwayne Johnson speaks onstage at Disney's presentation during CinemaCon.](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/DwayneJohnsonGettyImages-2148330979-copy.jpg?w=1024)
Dwayne Johnson speaks onstage at Disney’s presentation throughout CinemaCon.
Jerod Harris/Getty Pictures for CinemaCon
Two months after Disney CEO Bob Iger‘s shock announcement that Moana 2 was within the works on the studio and scheduled to hit theaters on Nov. 27, the animated sequel took heart stage at CinemaCon.
Disney debuted an unique sneak peek of footage of the David Derrick Jr.-directed movie in entrance of theater homeowners with the assistance of its celebrity voice expertise, Dwayne Johnson. He arrived to the stage after a mini-performance from Polynesian dancers. Johnson is again for the brand new installment alongside actors from the unique together with Auli’i Cravalho and others.
“As we are saying on the island, aloha,” Johnson stated, dressed for the event in trousers and a white tank prime. “Taking part in the character of Maui is likely one of the most life-changing life experiences for me and life altering roles.”
He added that the character is deeper than only a gig as a result of it represents his tradition, a lot in order that it’s on his chest together with his tattoos, and it’s additionally particular to his grandfather. “It’s a lot deeper than a film to me and I do know it’s deeper for Disney, too.”
Per Disney, the story picks up after Moana receives an sudden name from her wayfinding ancestors, so she units off on a journey to the far seas of Oceania and into harmful, long-lost waters for an journey in contrast to something she has ever confronted. The footage featured new music and gorgeous visuals in the identical vein as the unique. Johnson promised “an all new crew, all new setting and, in fact, new songs — you’re welcome,” he stated, telling theater homeowners its going to be the right escape this winter.
Derrick’s movie was initially developed as a TV sequence, Iger confirmed on the earnings name in February. “The unique Moana movie from 2016 just lately crossed 1 billion hours streamed on Disney+, and was essentially the most streamed film of 2023 on any platform within the U.S. Together with the live-action model of the unique movie that’s at present in improvement, Moana stays an extremely fashionable franchise, and we will’t wait to offer you extra of Moana and Maui when Moana 2 involves theaters this November,” Iger stated on the time, underscoring the movie’s continued cultural cachet.
That 2016 movie, additionally launched in November of that 12 months, was directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. It went on to gross greater than $248 million on the home field workplace for a world haul of north of $643 million. It additionally acquired two Academy Award nominations, one for greatest animated characteristic and one other for greatest authentic music, for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “How Far I’ll Go” sung by Cravalho.
Moana 2 is to not be confused with the opposite Moana undertaking within the works at Disney, a live-action movie set to star Johnson. The studio confirmed final week that Thomas Kail’s live-action providing was being pushed again from June 27, 2025, to a brand new launch date of July 10, 2026. The transfer offers the remake respiration room from the animated Moana 2, which opens this November.
Additionally as a part of the Moana phase, NATO chair Bob Bagby stunned Johnson by presenting him with NATO’s spirit of the trade award, the second trophy of its type following final 12 months’s, which was introduced to Christopher Nolan. “This award honors your unequal ardour and dedication to the theatrical expertise,” Bagby stated. In accepting, Johnson stated, “I gotta let you know that, with all of the adjustments, ebbs and flows and development and progress, the one factor that can all the time stay is the theater expertise.”