Record-breaking box office of animated sequel shows how the first film became an unlikely smash hit on streaming

If you want a quick explanation of why Moana 2 is on target to gross more than a billion dollars worldwide (it’s already made $400m in less than a week), you need only to look back to 2023, when the original Moana – a seven-year-old movie at the time – topped the list of the most-streamed movies in the United States.

The only other pre-2020 movie in the top 10 was Disney stablemate Frozen, which made way more in theaters than the first Moana did. Moana also ranked fourth among all movies in 2022, second in both 2021 and 2020, and, well, that takes us to the beginning of its home service, Disney+, roughly five years ago. By these rough but seemingly undeniable metrics, it seems reasonable to claim that Moana, a movie that in 2016 was outgrossed by both its fellow Disney release Zootopia and its holiday-season rival Sing, is the most-watched family film of the 2020s. If Elsa from Frozen was hoping to hang on to that particular title, she may have to let it go.