Disney's live-action remake of Moana is heading to theaters, but it faces a very different box office landscape than the studio's last billion-dollar remake. According to Screen Rant, Lilo and Stitch earned $1.03 billion worldwide in 2025, and Disney is hoping Moana can reach similar heights. The numbers, however, suggest that may be a difficult target to hit.
Lilo and Stitch opened on Memorial Day weekend, May 23, 2025, giving it a long holiday head start. Its primary competition that weekend was Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which underperformed. The only other option for families was A Minecraft Movie, then in its eighth weekend. The following week brought Karate Kid: Legends, which also underperformed, allowing Lilo and Stitch to hold first place. It did not face meaningful family competition until June 13, when the live-action How to Train Your Dragon remake arrived.
How to Train Your Dragon is itself an instructive case. It made $636 million worldwide, a number that Disney would likely not consider a success for Moana. That film competed directly against Lilo and Stitch during its opening weekend and then faced Pixar's Elio just one week later.
Disney's live-action remake strategy has proven resilient even when critics push back. The 2019 Lion King remake earned a 52% score on Rotten Tomatoes but still made $1.6 billion worldwide. Complaints about the lack of originality in these films have done little to stop audiences from buying tickets. The original Alice in Wonderland remake launched what became a long and mostly profitable run for the studio.
Moana's situation is closer to How to Train Your Dragon than to Lilo and Stitch. It enters a summer calendar with more family competition, fewer open weekends, and no holiday cushion. Whether it can overcome that calendar to reach the billion-dollar mark remains to be seen when it hits theaters.
