Lin-Manuel Miranda has a simple reason for his Moana 2 absence: He was busy

Despite breaking box office records, Moana 2 has not been the musical success fans expected.

By Matt Schimkowitz | December 10, 2024 | 6:47pm

Photo courtesy of Disney

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Lin-Manuel Miranda has a simple reason for his Moana 2 absence: He was busy

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How far will Moana 2 go? Currently, it’s breaking box office records left and right. That happens when Disney releases a sequel to a film as ubiquitous as Moana. Any parent could tell you, aside from “Let It Go,” Moana’s “How Far I’ll Go” has been on repeat for the last decade, and any mere mention of the song triggers PTSD flashbacks, so who cares if the sequel’s songs aren’t good? Well, some do. Among the other complaints about the film, many expressed disappointment with the music, which, unlike its predecessor, was not written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda, who wrote the music for the upcoming Mufasa movie, told The Hollywood Reporter that he was working on The Lion King prequel when Moana 2 got up and running, explaining his absence.

According to Miranda, he received the script for Mufasa after finishing Encanto and began working on the prequel at the start of 2022. Around that time, Moana 2, then a television series, was also pushing its raft into the sea. “So, Moana 2 was already in process as a TV series with Emily [Bear] and Abigail [Barlow],” he said. “So then, when that decision got made to turn that into a movie, they were already cooking.”

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Moana 2 was not an artistic success story like Toy Story 2, in which the studio cobbled together one of the greatest animated movies ever in just a few months. Instead, fashioning Moana 2 (the TV show) into Moana 2 (the movie), the movie has “more in common with straight-to-video sequels than the clever original,” writes A.V. Club film editor Jacob Oller. Perhaps Miranda could have kept the ship from sinking, but the movie has already made a ludicrous $600 million in two weeks. We’re sure everyone will learn a valuable lesson from that.

In response to the criticism of the film’s music, songwriter Abigail Barlow warned, “Give it a month, all the kids will be singing it, and you’ll be tired of it.”