Of Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Moana 2 is a historical blockbuster, along with Evil and Gladiator II to contribute to the most successful Thanksgiving weekend in movie history. For Disney, it’s another sign that 2024 is a return to form for the company after a lackluster 2023 filled with bombs, and it’s all the more impressive because there will never be a sequel to Moana. Developed as a Disney+ streaming series, Moana 2 became a feature film success thanks to being rushed into production in February of this year, thanks in large part to the overworked, non-union staff at Disney’s Vancouver studio.
From streaming series to feature film
On the one hand, it is a successful first feature film for the Vancouver animation studio, but on the other hand, it only came about because of the sudden decision of Disney executives to take it to theaters after the first test screening. If you have seen Moana 2can you see where the seams hold the tv together. It’s a testament to the talent of the creative team behind the film that it’s as good as it is and is considered “pretty good” by most fans and critics, but kids who loved the first movie don’t worry as much about things like a disjointed story or songs that don’t match the bombast and power of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s score from the original.
I know that the target audience is children, and it’s great that they love it, but behind the scenes of the rush job is another problem, and it’s one that has contributed to labor strikes in the past. Disney’s Vancouver studio is not part of a union, while the main animation studio in Burbank is, meaning one of the biggest companies on the planet found a way to make a record breaking movie while underpaying creative talent. If other studios follow suit in tapping non-union talent by making the “sudden decision” to go from a TV series to a feature film, which may have different pay structures, it will punish animation studios that have been overworked and underpaid for decades.
Underpaid and overworked
Moana 2 is not the first animated film to go from a television series to a feature film; in particular, The Secret Life of Pets 2 was intended as a series, but at least this time it was converted early in production. Again, if you’ve seen the film, you can tell it’s three different stories welded together, and the pre-production issues are evident on screen, but it wasn’t rushed for months. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Illumination pays its animators less than most studios, thanks to being based in France and having a history of low budgets, but unlike Disneythere was no bait and switch.
Disney has already been in trouble over its treatment of VFX studios forced to work twice as fast, for half as much, on Marvel movies, incl Wakanda forever and Quantumso taking advantage of an animation studio is par for the course. Moana 2 must remain an outlier, and other studios cannot follow suit. The real problem comes when other studios start looking around their vaults to cobble together a feature film from discarded animated parts; after all, if Disney is rewarded for it, why doesn’t it work for them?
