Avant Vaiana 2the first Vaiana was a great success in theaters. But it is really through streaming on Disney+ that the film has become one of the most valuable in the company's catalog.
In 2023, Disney had a difficult year due to numerous flops (Indiana Jones 5, The Marvels, Ant-Man 3…). We could even add that the end of the health crisis was a slow period for the studio, which suffered a series of disappointments in its most important and identified branch: animation. Raya, Buzz Lightyear, Avalonia or even Wish…the list is important, and not everyone has the excuse of Covid to justify their box office score.
However, it must be admitted that 2024 allowed the firm to regain momentum. Beyond the cardboard Deadpool & Wolverine, Vice-Versa 2 is so far the biggest success of the year with 1.7 billion dollars. But some American analysts claim that another animated film could dethrone it: Vaiana 2. The idea may make you smile, and yet it is entirely plausible when we know that the first Vaiana has become one of the most valuable feature films in the Disney catalog.
Vaiana taunts the competition
When we think of the most identified recent Disney licenses, The Snow Queen immediately comes to mind. With 1.3 billion dollars in worldwide revenue for the first part, 1.4 billion for its sequel, and as many auditory traumas from repeated listening to Freed, deliveredthe adventures of Elsa and Anna have become a sure value for the multinational, driven by their merchandising and future theme park areas.
In comparison, Vaiana only grossed $643 million upon its 2016 release. A score far from being dishonorable, but which made it “only” the 12th film of the year, for a vintage whose first five places were held by Disney, with works approaching or exceeding a billion dollars (Captain America: Civil War, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Finding Dory, Zootopia and the live remake of Jungle Book).
So what justifies such a late release of a Vaiana 2if not the boredom of seeing Disney settle for more or less lazy sequels? Or to go further, what justifies the release of Vaiana 2 and the start of work on its live remake less than a decade after the original? His mind-blowing success in streaming.
Indeed, Vaiana is the most viewed film in streaming in the last five years. As a reminder, Disney+ arrived on the American market in November 2019, and since 2020, Vaiana is constantly in the top 4 of the most watched feature films in streaming, all platforms combined, where we also see that Disney+ and its family films have a special place.
If the data is extremely impressive, it deserves a little nuance. The problem with streaming lies in the fact that the platforms keep their data very carefully, and only communicate it in the event of promotional potential. In cinema, the concrete relationship between producers, distributors, exhibitors and spectators makes transparency of figures obligatory.
Therefore, for streaming, we still have to rely on external structures to collect and analyze data. This is particularly the case with Nielsen, a company which gives very interesting figures every year, even if they are limited to the American territory, and they primarily analyze views on television. Note that they extrapolate their figures a little to estimate the share of views on mobile and desktop based on the data they collect.
The blue light of Disney+
The calculation methodology is far from perfect, but the United States remains the main territory of Disney+, and in any case, the supremacy of Vaiana is final. In 2020, the film (which is titled Moana in original version) is 2nd film in the ranking of Nielsenbehind Frozen 2which was released during Christmas 2019.
In 2021, it is again 2nd, this time behind the novelty from Pixar Lucawhich was released directly on the platform. Furthermore, it exceeds Raya and the last dragonalso a new release released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+. Note that Frozen 2 fell back to 4th place, where Vaiana was maintained.
In 2022, he finished 4th against Charmwhich despite its somewhat disappointing life in theaters, has really had a second wind on Disney+. However, Vaiana continues to remain in the top 5 in the face of new developments, such as Red Alert or All in scene 2 on Netflix. And finally, in 2023, Vaiana reached a milestone by finishing 1st in the rankingin front Charm but also the novelty Super Mario Bros.
That being said, it is important to return to the system for calculating this ranking, which is questionable. Nielsen chooses to count the total number of minutes viewedbut this system can be unfair depending on the length of the films. Some prefer to divide the total minutes by the length of the film to balance out the number of theoretical full views.
Regardless, the success of Vaiana is all the more impressive, since the film only lasts 107 minutes, or 1h47 including credits. To take the 2023 ranking, we find in 8th and 9th place Black Panther 2 et Avatar 2which last 2h42 and 3h12 respectively. If we count their positioning according to a supposed number of complete views, they clearly do not reach the scores of Vaiana.
According to Nielsen, since they analyze streaming, Vaiana would total 80 billion minutes viewed. To put it another way, that's the equivalent of having watched the entire film 748 million times.
The obvious Moana 2
According to the structure, Vaiana has the main strength of being rewatched by many households, which tends to explain its longevity in the streaming rankings. This is the perfect example of what a platform like Disney+ is looking for: a film that attracts new subscribers, and keeps those who already are. Compared to the massive investments that the SVoD service and its competitors make for original productions, Nielsen's figures remind us of another reality. These are the catalog films that are still the most successfulespecially in the field of family cinema.
This probably explains why Vaiana 2 was originally designed as a series for Disney+before Bob Iger intervened to have the project transformed into a feature film. A decision which should allow the final result to benefit from success on several distribution channels, and perhaps even to be the biggest theatrical success of 2024. The “wave” Vaiana is far from over…
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