Even if the wind on the sail on the sea stays behind the live-action Moana, it’ll still be easy to predict how far it’ll go: into a loss of at least $100M, as Dwayne Johnson’s last grasp at being the biggest movie star on the planet, which he hasn’t been in at least ten years, will fail to turn a profit with one of the biggest properties that Disney has to offer. Not only is he no longer the biggest movie star on the planet, but he’s no longer even in the conversation.
The Rock isn’t the only reason that Moana failed. We’ll get into that, of course. But it is at best alarming, at worst a damning indictment on how far his star power has fallen. Since the Black Adam disaster that was so embarrassing it became a staple of movie memes, The Rock has had the following live-action movies: Red One, a family Christmas movie which couldn’t even make its budget back despite co-starring with Chris Evans. The Smashing Machine, a low budget independent prestige play where supposedly the biggest movie star on the planet couldn’t even make an A24 film even half of its budget back, and bombed so poorly that The Rock went on a press tour to explain how the box office apparently doesn’t matter. Now, it’s Moana, a property that just had a billion dollar film less than two years ago, and whose original movie is the most streamed movie in the history of Disney Plus, and it opened globally to less than $100M. The Rock’s movie before Black Adam was Red Notice, which was a streaming film designed to remind people he’s still a star after Jungle Cruise, an adventure film co-starring Emily Blunt, failed to turn a profit. The last movie starring The Rock to make a profit that wasn’t an established franchise: 2018’s Skyscraper. The Rock hasn’t drawn an audience to the theatre in quite literally eight years, even with a family Christmas film, a live-action remake of the most popular Disney film of this generation, a low budget indie, among other slam dunk projects. Essentially: expect to see the Final Boss come out on Raw soon so he can still feel like he’s a big star while Michael Cole calls him the biggest star on the planet.
Despite opening at #1, Moana’s subdued ~43M estimate is a massive stepdown from its animated sequel in 2024 which opened domestically to $139M over a three-day weekend, nearly a $100M dropoff. While the movie sold itself on The Rock as Maui in real-life, that’s not the only issue with this movie. The movie itself is allegedly a carbon copy of the original, which in and of itself makes it derivative. But the redundancy shouldn’t matter, presuming it offers a unique experience with the medium change, but even that falls flat when you consider it’s 90% CGI instead of actual practical shooting on the beach, making it feel like a lesser form of animation. Not to mention, what is with The Rock’s wig and body suit? A $250M movie that looks like an SNL sketch is not going to sell.
There’s also simply the fact that it’s too soon. The reason that the live-action remakes can work is because you have the nostalgia of parents wanting to introduce their children to the stories that they grew up on, and when a movie is only ten years old and you’re making it because the star of it needs a theatrical hit for an ego boost, you’re not landing the nostalgia factor for people who aren’t even parents yet because they’re teenagers now who aren’t going to go to a movie like this to begin with.
Finishing in second and third place, Minions & Monsters saw a very solid hold of 44%, while Toy Story 5 continues to go to infinity and beyond, both posting very reliable numbers despite a film that theoretically should have stifled their box offices. Minions & Monsters is still a disappointment, certainly, but at $280M on an $85M budget, Minions & Monsters is still an easy profit. You can read our larger exploration of its box office in the report from last week. We also did a deeper dive on Toy Story 5 three weeks ago, which has made $880M in 24 days. This seems locked to make $1B.
…which would make it the third member of the $1B this year, because Michael, after months of us at the DSR Box Office Report projecting it to make $1B, has finally passed the thresholds if the weekend approximations hold. This makes it not only the first biopic to hit $1B, but as a Lionsgate picture, the first independent film to make $1B. But it also finished at 15th this weekend, making just around $250K, and at $1.001B, now leaving the theatres now that it just reached the goal the studio had in mind.
The only two films other than Moana to be in the top ten this week that are new are Evil Dead Burn and The Invite. Evil Dead Burn seems to be performing well enough for its budget, but well-below tracking. Evil Dead itself has never been one of the larger franchises, and is perhaps best known for launching director Sam Raimi, but after the success of Evil Dead Rise which made $150M at the box office, a $13M open is rather underwhelming. It’s well below both Evil Dead Rise’s opening, and the initial tracking. The audience scores are well enough for horror, currently holding a 3.5 on Letterboxd, B on CinemaScore, and 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, so the success of this film will hinge primarily on how strong its word-of-mouth can be and what the initial drop is.
The Invite also saw a solid, but somewhat muted opening in its wide release, making $5.7M. But it still isn’t fully wide, considering it’s only in around 1,600 theatres as A24 uses its roll out strategy it tends to save for awards season. The film, which A24 won in a bidding war for $12M, has already made ~$10M and needs to make around $30M to be profitable. It should do fine, especially in ancillary markets, but this won’t be a smash hit for an R-rated theatrical comedy like Olivia Wilde had hoped for, but our Facebook page did put out a brief review encouraging people to go see it.
The rest of the top ten:
5. Young Washington: Another film we covered last week, a 70% drop is a brutal drop for a film that had a pass it on campaign similar to other Angel Studio offerings like Sound of Freedom. While these campaigns, which usually cast doubt on how well the film actually opens, are usually frontloaded, it’s still not a great number. But the film, if the number is to be believed, which we discussed last week we kind of doubt, is only $17M away from turning a profit by traditional metrics. Not a disastrous outing, but making $6M on your second weekend makes it hard to believe it will get to the $50M mark.
7. Obsession: We’ve discussed Obsession substantially for months now. There’s very little to say beyond Curry Barker using his One Wish Willow wisely. But it did reach a cool milestone this month: it’s now the highest-grossing original horror film of the century.
8. Supergirl: We discussed a variety of reasons here, but simply put: this could be the biggest bomb of the year. In its third weekend, it’s bringing in less than $6M.
9. Disclosure Day: Disclosure Day is performing like a modest hit, but it’s not enough to save it. Spielberg perhaps should try to rein in his budgets going forward for his latest projects, as this continues to be an issue. This isn’t the same level of general audience cache in 2026 that he had when making Raiders of the Lost Ark.
10. Backrooms: Another film we’ve discussed significantly in other box office reports, but the highest-grossing A24 film of all-time saw a nice boost for a last breath with its extended cut. Kane Parsons has noted the additional footage will soon be added to his YouTube channel.
Looking ahead, next week is The Odyssey. This could be a billion dollar film, but in the history of cinema, only two R-rated films have done that: Joker and Deadpool and Wolverine. Regardless, Oppenheimer was an R-rated, three-hour half-black half-white period biopic about a physicist and made $975M, while The Odyssey is one of the most beloved stories in history. The film is tracking at around $80-$100M domestic, which would be the highest-grossing live-action film of the year in its opening weekend if it reaches the higher end. The two things to look at here: Nolan films always overperform estimates, and the 70MM IMAX showings are selling out for weeks ahead of its opening, so while its standard showings may be muted, it’s the kind of film people may wait to see in the best format possible, which could help expand its legs beyond a normal film. Between these, the culture war issues, among other things, it’s one of the hardest films to project going forward. Next week’s Box Office Report will be a few days later, however, as I will be traveling to Manhattan to see it in 70MM with my best friend, and thus won’t be near my laptop until Monday or Tuesday.
Photo credit; Disney.
Jameus Mooney is an entertainment writer for Comicbook Clique, having covered the entertainment industry for years. You can follow him on Twitter here, and Letterboxd here. You can also listen to his horror podcast, The 2:17 Horror Podcast, at the DeathArts XIII YouTube channel.