Moana
The ocean is calling.
Moana (2016)
Budget
$150 000 000
Revenue
$690 860 472
Director
Scenario
Ron Clements
Author
Composer
Producer
Osnat Shurer
Short description
Set in ancient Polynesia, Moana follows the daughter of a village chief who feels a strong pull toward the ocean that surrounds her home. Her people have long stopped venturing beyond the reef, but when a mysterious blight threatens the island, she sets sail to find the demigod Maui and put things right. Maui, a boastful trickster with the power to raise islands from the sea, becomes her reluctant traveling companion as they cross the Pacific, encountering giant creatures and other perils. The film is a story of discovery, as Moana learns about her ancestors' history as navigators and finds her own place in that tradition.
Ron Clements and John Musker directed, continuing a partnership that includes The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog. Jared Bush wrote the screenplay, and Osnat Shurer produced. Auli'i Cravalho voices Moana, with Dwayne Johnson as Maui, Rachel House as Gramma Tala, Temuera Morrison as Chief Tui, Jemaine Clement as Tamatoa and Nicole Scherzinger as Sina.
Released in 2016, the film runs 107 minutes. It was made for a budget of 150 million USD and took about 691 million USD worldwide, a strong return on that investment. Ratings are consistent across sources: 7.6 out of 10 on IMDb from over 444,000 votes and 7.6 out of 10 on TMDB from around 14,000 votes, while a critics' rating of 7.9 out of 10 from 288 reviews places professional assessments slightly above the audience scores, though all three land in similar territory.
What's left behind the scenes
- Moana is the first Polynesian princess in a classic Disney film.
- Despite being a computer-animated film, all of Maui's tattoos were hand-drawn.
- A studio signature: Barefoot characters: all human characters walk barefoot throughout the film.
- Directors John Musker and Ron Clements immersed themselves in the study of Polynesian culture for months in order to create a film that would respectfully represent the mythology and culture of the Polynesian people.
- The main character lives on the island of Motunui, which does not actually exist – the creators did not want to focus on the culture of just one island and decided to pay tribute to them all.
- According to the script, the CBI headquarters is located in the California town of Sacramento, but on-location filming there lasted only two days. The majority of the filming took place in studio pavilions or around Los Angeles.
- By the time Auli'i Cravalho was cast, Moana's design had been finalized.
- Initially, the rooster Hei Hei was conceived as a hot-tempered bully, but then his character was drastically changed and he became "very, very silly."
- Jared Bush created over 700 sketches of the project during his first year working on it.
- Some of the locations visited by animators during research had a significant impact on the film, such as Fiji, Samoa, and Tahiti.
- Auli'i Cravalho is the youngest actress to voice a princess (the ruler's daughter) in Disney animated films. She was 14 years old at the time of working on the film.
- Dina Jane Hansen, from the American girl group Fifth Harmony formed in 2012, auditioned for the role of Moana.
- The first film produced by Osnat Shurer, Vice President of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
- One of the few Disney animated films in which every actor in the voice cast mimics the lip movements of their character. As a result, dialogue recording was completed only 4 months before the film's premiere. Usually, dialogue is recorded before the start of animation (or closer to the end of the film's production).
- The trailer, as well as the film itself, shows Maui transforming into a falcon. He possesses this ability in Maori myths.
- In the film's trailer, Maui claims he can slow down the sun's journey with a magical fishing hook and that he pulled land from the ocean depths. This is a plot from Maori legends about the origin of New Zealand. According to the legends, Maui pulled it out from under the water while fishing. He slowed down the sun's movement across the sky when he decided the days were too short. However, there are legends stating that Maui slowed down the sun by catching it in a fishing net.
- The word “moana” means “ocean” or “sea” in Hawaiian and Maori. The same word is also used to denote the color blue.
- This is the first full-length computer-animated film by writers and directors John Musker and Ron Clements. Previously, this creative duo had only worked with traditional hand-drawn animation, namely: “The Great Mouse Detective” (1986), “The Little Mermaid” (1989), “Aladdin” (1992), “Hercules” (1997), “Treasure Planet” (2002), and “The Princess and the Frog” (2009).
- This is the second film directed by John Musker and Ron Clements after “The Little Mermaid” (1989) where the events unfold in the ocean.
- This is the 20th animated film from Walt Disney Studios, named simply after the main character. Among the others are: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), “Pinocchio” (1940), “Dumbo” (1941), “Bambi” (1942), “Cinderella” (1950), “Peter Pan” (1953), “Lady and the Tramp” (1955), “Robin Hood” (1973), “Oliver & Company” (1988), “Aladdin” (1992), “Pocahontas” (1995), “Hercules” (1997), “Mulan” (1998), “Tarzan” (1999), “Lilo & Stitch” (2002), “Chicken Little” (2005), “Bolt” (2008), “Winnie the Pooh” (2011), and “Wreck-It Ralph” (2012).
- In Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the Netherlands, the cartoon is titled "Vaiana" due to copyright issues. In France it is called "Vaiana: The Legend of the End of the World", and in Latin America it has the subtitle: "Sea Adventures". In China, "Moana" was renamed "Ocean Romance". In Italy, the film's title will be changed to "Oceania", and the main character's name is Vaiana to avoid association with porn actress Moana Pozzi.
- Following Chris Sanders' animated film "Lilo & Stitch", which takes place in Hawaii (2002), "Moana" is the second Disney film to be set in Polynesia.
- A contract with Lin-Manuel Miranda to write music for the animated film "Moana" was signed before his Broadway musical "Hamilton" (2015) gained international recognition. Miranda wrote the lyrics and music for the musical and initially starred in it. After signing the contract, Miranda frequently communicated with the "Moana" film crew via "Skype" from behind the scenes, sometimes even without taking off his stage costume.
- The second Disney film after "Bolt" (Chris Williams and Byron Howard, 2008) to primarily use computer animation with small additions of traditional hand-drawn animation.
- The rooster Hei Hei and the pig Pua are modeled after the film's directors John Musker and Ron Clements. Musker and Clements have a tradition whereby all their films, starting with "The Little Mermaid" (1989), include characters whose appearance is a caricature of their own. In previous films, characters modeled after them appeared only in episodic roles, but now they play supporting characters – Moana’s devoted helpers.
- Moana is the second Disney princess (after Merida from Brave (2012)) whose story is not based on a fairy tale or legend, and who also does not have a romantic storyline.
- When Moana and Maui enter Tamatoa's cave, and Maui tries to transform into a falcon during the fight with Tamatoa, Maui accidentally turns into different animals during the attempts, one of which is Sven the reindeer from Disney's previous animated feature, Frozen.
- In the animated film Zootopia (Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush, 2016), on a display of discs ("They haven't been released yet," says Duke Weaselton), you can spot a disc for the future film Moana.
- Goofy's yell (one of the legendary samples used in cinema for decades) sounds when Maui jumps into the Realm of Monsters. Thus, Moana (2016) became the first Disney film created using computer animation to feature Goofy's yell.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
