Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana” lost its way at the box office this weekend as the company’s latest live-action remake opened to a sluggish $43 million in the U.S. and Canada.

The domestic haul for “Moana” underperformed studio expectations, which ranged from $60 million to $65 million. Globally, the film brought in a total of $95 million on a production budget of about $250 million.

Despite its lackluster debut, the film still came in first at the box office during a weekend where it had few new competitors in the family film space.

The “Moana” franchise has been a box-office and streaming juggernaut. The original 2016 animated movie brought in more than $643 million worldwide and is the most-watched movie on Disney+, while a 2024 sequel grossed more than $1 billion at the global box office. On the merchandise side, more than 22 million “Moana”-themed toys have been sold. “Moana” also appears in the Disney theme parks.

But the theatrical reception for the live-action film may signal that audiences think there’s been too much “Moana” in just 10 years. (The 2024 film sequel was originally set to be a streaming series before it was moved to Disney’s theatrical calendar.)

Most of Disney’s previous live-action remakes have come decades after the original animated movie, such as 2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” which arrived 23 years after its animated predecessor and grossed more than $1 billion in worldwide box office receipts.

The theatrical haul for the latest “Moana” may also have suffered from poor reviews — the film got a 34% on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with several critics highlighting its nearly frame-by-frame similarity to the original film. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, however, was 90%.

Still, as the last of this summer’s major family films, “Moana” could see a longer tail in theaters, particularly with many children still on break from school. Disney’s live-action “Mufasa: The Lion King” opened in 2024 to a middling $35 million, but ended up grossing more than $722 million globally through the holiday season.

Universal Pictures and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” came in second at the domestic box office this weekend with $20.5 million. Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5” continued its strong run with an $18.5-million haul, enough for third place and contributing to a total global gross of $879.1 million.

Warner Bros.’ “Evil Dead Burn” ($13.7 million) and Angel Studios’ “Young Washington” ($6.4 million) rounded out the top five.

Also notable this weekend: Lionsgate’s musical biopic “Michael” crossed $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue, the first time that the studio has reached that milestone and the second film this year after “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” to hit that mark.

California cardrooms welcomed a court decision to let them continue to allow visitors to bet on blackjack, one of their most lucrative games.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge struck down regulations that would ban cardrooms from offering blackjack in California.

Authorities wanted to close what some consider a legal loophole allowing cardrooms to offer blackjack and games in which players play against the house. Those types of games are supposed to be offered only in Native American casinos, but cardrooms were getting around the restriction by using designated outside dealers.

In the June 30 ruling, Judge Richard Darwin said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and the California Bureau of Gambling Control exceeded their authority by introducing the change.

The California Department of Justice officially introduced the proposed regulations in May 2025, and responded to over 1,700 public comments.

The California Office of Administrative Law green-lit the rules in February, and they were set to go into effect on April 1, but in March, the California Gaming Assn. filed a suit to invalidate them.

In May, Darwin filed a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the state from imposing the new rules.

There are more than 70 cardrooms across California employing about 20,000 workers, according to the California Gaming Assn. It estimated that the changes could cut the number of cardroom jobs in half and significantly reduce the industry’s positive economic impact.

A 2019 analysis commissioned by the group estimated that tax revenue generated by California cardrooms was roughly $500 million a year.

Kyle Kirkland, the president of the California Gaming Assn. and owner of Club One Casino , said the regulation would have not only affected the cardrooms themselves, but also the cities and communities that rely on the money they generate.

“We give the city of Fresno a million dollars a year in table tax revenue, and they were actively asking me how could they budget for this going forward, given the impact that it’s going to have,” he said.

At Club One, about 60% of revenue comes from blackjack, Kirkland said.

“I can’t survive on the other 40%,” he said.

If the regulations had gone into effect, Kirkland said he would have had to lay off nearly 200 of the cardroom’s 250 employees.

Cardrooms in L.A. County generate more than $2 billion in economic activity and support more than 9,000 jobs.

Kirkland said the regulations would have especially affected cities like Bell Gardens and Hawaiian Gardens, where casinos represent nearly 70% of the general fund.

In the City of Commerce, the Commerce Casino generates 40% of the city’s general fund, and employs 2,200 people. When the regulations were first passed, Mayor Kevin Lainez said the city was “devastated”.

In response to the potential revenue losses, the city declared a state of fiscal emergency, and introduced a higher sales tax.

Lainez said the city would have had to make cuts to senior programs, public safety services and capital improvement projects.

“We’ve responsibly built our budgets and shaped them around the revenue that the cardroom generates, so along with all of the other businesses here in the city, right, and we’ve developed some quality of life services that our community really relies on, and so for this to no longer be hanging over our heads is a relief to our community,” he said.

The ban wouldn’t have affected Native American casinos.

Proposition 1A, passed by California voters in 2000, gave tribes the right to conduct Nevada-style gambling, such as casino-banked card games, on reservations.

Cardrooms have continued to offer blackjack and other banked games such as baccarat by giving players the option to take turns dealing the game and by relying on third-party businesses that employ people to act as bankers.

The Bureau of Gambling Control for years accepted the practice, which attorneys representing cardrooms say is “completely legal” and has been approved by Bonta’s predecessors, but the state’s new rules crack down on the use of these third-party businesses and tighten rules for “player-dealers.”

While the California Gaming Assn.’s suit was successful, Kirkland said he expects the Justice Department to appeal, and said the conflict is far from over.

“There’s not really a lot of celebration,” he said. “It’s concerning that the attorney general would think that that was a valid way of going out and regulating the cardroom industry, so I’m just wondering what’s the next step, what’s coming behind, but at least in this battle, it was a pretty strong and resounding victory.”

In 2016, Walt Disney Co.’s “Moana” became a box office hit, captivating audiences with catchy earworms from Lin-Manuel Miranda and a spunky young heroine who rejected the label of princess.

Now, just 10 years later, it’s the latest Disney animated film to be given the live-action treatment.

Burbank-based Disney has long reached into its vault in search of animated classics to redo in a live-action format. But a decade is the shortest time between one of the company’s original animated movies and the reimagined film. (2025’s “Lilo & Stitch,” which originally debuted in 2002, is the next closest with a gap of 23 years.)

Why go back to “Moana” so soon? The Polynesian wayfarer is extremely popular.

The 2016 animated film grossed more than $643 million at the global box office, then spawned a 2024 sequel that made more than $1 billion worldwide. The original is the most-watched movie in Disney+ history with more than 1.5 billion hours of viewing.

“Every once in a while in Hollywood, we make a film that is more than a film,” actor Dwayne Johnson, who reprises his role as the demigod Maui, said onstage during the movie’s premiere Tuesday at the Hollywood Bowl after a Polynesian dance performance. “I think you could feel it already tonight, with our culture and with what we have represented. But also not only our Polynesian culture … it’s also a shared culture around the world.”

The latest “Moana,” out this weekend, will join a cadre of family films at the multiplex.

That includes Disney and Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” which has now racked up more than $774 million worldwide, and Universal Pictures and Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters,” which debuted domestically last week to a softer-than-expected opening of $62 million for the five-day Fourth of July holiday weekend.

The weaker haul for “Minions & Monsters” has led to questions about whether there are too many family films in theaters, which could affect the reception for the latest iteration of “Moana.” But as the last of this summer’s trio of major animated films, the runway could be clear for the film to build steam.

“I don’t think two movies make saturation,” said Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios. “There’s a huge fanbase for the ‘Moana’ franchise.”

But with two “Moana” movies in the last decade, will audiences flock to another film? Analysts are expecting an opening weekend haul of $75 million, though studio estimates are closer to $60 million to $65 million. The film’s production budget is about $250 million.

“When you look at these massive movies that were just incredible — ‘The Lion King,’ ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast’ — they were brought back after years and years,” said David A. Gross, who writes the industry newsletter FranchiseRe. “I think there’s an argument that says absence makes the heart grow fonder with some of these. We’ll see.”

Early reviews of the film have been mixed, and “Moana” has so far notched a 37% rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is a nearly frame-by-frame re-creation of the original.

Disney’s live-action remakes have largely been box-office boons for the company, with a few exceptions.

In the last 16 years, five films have grossed more than $1 billion globally, including 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” (Other live-action spin-offs based on classic animated movies, such as 2024’s “Mufasa: The Lion King” and 2014’s “Maleficent,” also had solid performances.)

“It goes back to the original [intellectual property] of these movies,” Cripps said of the importance of live-action films for Disney’s slate. “People grow up with it, they become fans of it, they live with it. When you’ve got IP that resonates so well literally around the world with fans, I just think it’s a clever extension.”

There have been some notable misfires, including last year’s “Snow White,” which cratered at the box office amid a myriad of controversies, including racist backlash to the casting of Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, as the titular princess, its depiction of little people and its lead actors’ views on the Israel-Hamas war.

In general, live-action retellings have also typically performed well overseas — a marketplace that isn’t always reliable these days.

Across 13 recent live-action films from Disney and other studios, all made more than 60% of their global box office revenue in international markets, Gross said.

By comparison, films across all genres typically bring in about half of their revenue overseas, he said.

“When these movies connect,” Gross said, “they work everywhere.”