Click here to read the full article.
On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, in our weekly Box Office segment, Variety‘s Rebecca Rubin unpacks what went wrong with Disney’s “Moana” live-action remake. And Jon Erwin, the filmmaker behind “Young Washington,”
explains how his Wonder Project banner is making indie theatrical films work as a business.
The box office dynamic around “Moana” seems to be a simply a case of too much too soon. Disney just released a “Moana” sequel in 2024. The live-action remake didn’t offer much urgency to get families to the multiplexes. The film’s hefty $250 million budget makes it an uphill climb after a modest start of $43 million.
“When you look at something like ‘Lilo and Stitch,’ the live action remake that opened last summer — it was a huge hit. It made a billion dollars, but it was produced for just $100 million. And so if ‘Moana’ had also cost around $100 million, I think we would be having a very different conversation,” Rubin says. “But with a budget that’s $250 million, it needs to make around $600 million globally to justify that price tag. And it’s pretty unrealistic to assume it’s going to get anywhere near that number.”
As for the why of it, Rubin says it comes down to timing. “This kind of underscores the fact that there is such a thing as too soon. Even though ‘Moana’ is extremely popular, the movie came out a decade ago, which you’d think would be enough time to build nostalgia. I think the problem is that they had the animated sequel less than two years ago, which was a huge success. It made over a $1 billion. And so I think people felt like they had just seen this.”
Erwin, a filmmaker and co-founder of Wonder Project, explains how the company has made the theatrical business model work for the purpose-focused content firm that launched in 2021. “Young Washington’s” strong opening is a mile marker for the company. Erwin’s passion for the subject matter helped propel him to the ambitious biopic that focuses on George Washington’s formative years.
“The goal [with Wonder Project] is just to tell stories that restore faith in things worth believing in,” Erwin says.
“I just wanted to write a love letter to America for our 250th anniversary. It’s a singular moment in our in our lifetimes, and I had gotten obsessed with the story of the American Revolution. It started about a decade ago. I was in New York working and I could not get in to ‘Hamilton.’ It was sold out,” he recalls. “So I’m like, I’ll read all the books that it was based on. So I started with Washington and, and then I just got thoroughly obsessed with the story of the American Revolution. And so I found this unknown, by and largem chapter in Washington’s life when he was younger that defined his character. And so I thought this would be a great way to start telling America’s story.”
(Pictured: Jon Erwin)
Listen to Daily Variety on iHeartPodcasts, Apple Podcasts, Variety’s YouTube Podcast channel, Amazon Music, Spotify and other podcast platforms.
