Dwayne Johnson Responds to Harsh ‘Moana’ Reviews as Disney Faces Box Office Questions: ‘That’s Just the Way It Goes’
Dwayne Johnson Responds to Harsh ‘Moana’ Reviews as Disney Faces Box Office Questions: ‘That’s Just the Way It Goes’
Dwayne Johnson is not running away from the disappointing reviews surrounding Disney’s live-action Moana.
Instead, the actor says he has accepted the criticism as part of the business — while continuing to defend the film, the people who made it and the cultural impact he believes it has had on audiences.
The 54-year-old star, who returned as Maui in the live-action adaptation of Disney’s 2016 animated hit, recently reflected on the movie’s uneven reception after critics responded far less enthusiastically than the filmmakers may have hoped.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Johnson recalled the emotional whiplash of watching the first reviews arrive.
“Our first two reviews came out,” he said. “I’ll never forget it … They were amazing. I was like, ‘Wow.’”
For a brief moment, Johnson believed the film might be headed toward an overwhelmingly positive critical response.
Then the tone changed.
“[Then] it went another way, as sometimes happens,” he said.
Rather than expressing frustration toward critics, Johnson appeared philosophical about the reaction.
“That’s just the way it goes because we’re in this business,” he explained.
The experience also led to private conversations at home between Johnson and his wife, Lauren Hashian.
According to the actor, the two often discussed the movie late at night, after their children had gone to sleep, trying to keep the criticism in perspective.
Johnson described conversations at their kitchen island in which they reminded each other that a movie’s opening weekend — and the intense discussion surrounding it — does not necessarily determine the film’s long-term meaning.
The challenge, he said, was to look beyond the immediate “noise.”
For Johnson, that meant focusing less on review scores and more on what the movie represented to audiences, particularly people who felt connected to its Polynesian roots.
Despite the negative reviews, Johnson said he remains proud of the project and believes it brought happiness to many viewers.
His attitude toward people who did not enjoy it is equally straightforward.
“If you love it, great,” he said. “If you don’t, no problem.”
That acceptance comes as Moana faces a difficult critical and commercial conversation.
The live-action remake currently holds a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes, reflecting a largely negative reception among critics. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 42%, similarly indicating mixed-to-negative reviews.
Some critics questioned whether Disney needed to revisit a film that was released only a decade earlier and remains enormously popular in its animated form.
Others focused on the challenges inherent in translating the color, movement and visual imagination of animation into live action.
Still, not every review was dismissive.
Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman offered one of the more favorable assessments, arguing that the remake should not be judged as a replacement for the original animated movie.
“The remake of ‘Moana’ can’t, and shouldn’t, replace the original,” he wrote. “But it earns a place alongside it.”
That distinction is important to Johnson’s defense of the film.
The original Moana, released in 2016, became one of Disney’s most enduring modern animated properties. Johnson voiced Maui, the charismatic demigod who joins Moana on her voyage across the ocean.
The character became closely associated with Johnson, particularly through the song “You’re Welcome,” while the film developed a strong following among families around the world.
Its representation of Pacific Island cultures also carried personal meaning for Johnson, who is of Samoan heritage and has frequently spoken about the importance of honoring his family and cultural background.
The live-action adaptation therefore represented more than another major studio role for him.
But enthusiasm surrounding the franchise has not translated into the financial performance Disney had hoped for.
During Disney’s August 5 earnings call, CEO Josh D’Amaro acknowledged that the theatrical results for the live-action Moana had been softer than expected.
D’Amaro discussed the film alongside The Mandalorian and Grogu, another major franchise release that failed to meet the company’s box office expectations.
However, Disney’s CEO argued that theatrical ticket sales are only one part of the financial equation when evaluating films connected to the company’s biggest intellectual properties.
“Even when our franchise films don’t meet our box office expectations, as with the ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ and the live-action ‘Moana,’ our investments in these core properties fuel other parts of our company,” D’Amaro said.
His comments reflect Disney’s broader strategy of treating major franchises as interconnected businesses rather than isolated movie releases.
A film can potentially underperform in theaters while still generating value through streaming, merchandise, theme parks, licensing, music and renewed audience interest in earlier entries in the franchise.
That broader ecosystem may become particularly important in the case of Moana.
According to Variety’s reporting, the live-action movie could lose at least $100 million during its theatrical run.
If that projection proves accurate, the result would make the film one of Disney’s more disappointing recent live-action remakes from a purely theatrical perspective.
It would also reignite questions surrounding the studio’s long-running strategy of transforming animated classics into live-action productions.
Over the past decade, Disney has turned films such as Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Lilo & Stitch into live-action or photorealistic adaptations.
Some became enormous global hits.
Others generated more complicated responses, with critics frequently questioning whether the remakes offered enough new material to justify their existence.
Moana entered theaters with an additional challenge: unlike many earlier Disney remakes, its animated predecessor is still relatively recent.
The original movie has remained highly visible through streaming and continued popularity with younger audiences, making comparisons between the two versions almost unavoidable.
Yet Johnson appears determined not to let those comparisons — or the disappointing numbers — define his experience making the film.
His response suggests that he views the project through a longer lens.
Opening weekends eventually pass. Review scores become part of a movie’s history. Box office results can influence studio decisions, but audiences often develop their own relationships with films over time.
For Johnson, the most meaningful response appears to have come from viewers who connected with the story and its cultural representation.
That does not erase the commercial realities surrounding the movie.
A potential nine-figure theatrical loss would be significant even for a company as large as Disney, and the weak critical scores are impossible to ignore.
But Johnson is choosing to separate those realities from his personal pride in the project.
He has spent decades working in an industry where enormous successes can be followed by disappointments, and vice versa.
With Moana, he seems to have reached a simple conclusion: not every audience member or critic is going to respond the same way.
“If you love it, great. If you don’t, no problem.”
For a movie facing some of the toughest reviews of Johnson’s recent career, that may be the clearest indication of how he intends to move forward.
The criticism is real.
The financial questions are real.
But so, in Johnson’s view, is the connection the film created with audiences who saw something meaningful in it.
And for now, that is the part of Moana he appears most interested in remembering.
