Disney’s live-action “Moana” opened to roughly $43 million in U.S. theaters over the weekend of 10 July 2026, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported — a result inside the past week but well short of the studio’s $60 million-plus target. The recovery, as is its custom, is two weeks from the next weekend.

A debut, underwhelming

“Moana” led the frame with about $43 million from 3,875 North American screens, per The Numbers, against a reported $250 million production cost. The Hollywood Reporter called the opening “well short of its targeted $60 million-plus figure.” It displaced “Minions & Monsters” and “Toy Story 5,” which had dominated the holiday frame.

“It is the most reliable slate in Hollywood,” said an executive who asked not to be named because he was, in fact, a trailer. “We open. We tally. We approach the target. We hit the second weekend. The clock resets. The comeback is two weeks from the next release, indefinitely.”

The milestone that recedes

The summer total had reached about $1.8 billion by late June, within 2% of 2019; the first $10 billion year since the pandemic sits two weeks beyond the current calendar page, where it will remain two weeks beyond the next one. Audiences, for their part, kept buying tickets, which is the one step that actually moves the number.

Executives dismissed the concern, noting the rebound is also roughly two weeks out, which they described as “a complete coincidence, screened nightly.”

Sources