It may never reach the dazzling artistic heights of Millennials: The Musical, but Disney's new movie Moana, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and featuring music by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is set to make a gang of money over Thanksgiving weekend.
Variety is reporting that the animated film took in a record-setting $2.6 million at Tuesday night preview screenings in North America—doubling the previous record, held by The Good Dinosaur. That puts Moana, which also stars the voice talents of Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame, Rachel House, and introduces actress Auliʻi Cravalho in the title role, on track to make up to $88 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday. The film may even, Variety speculates, surpass the all-time Thanksgiving box office record of $93.4 million, held by Frozen.
Lin-Manuel Miranda talked to Complex about writing the songs for Moana. He was pleasantly surprised that among his duties as composer was writing a song for The Rock.
"I got to write a tune for The Rock, which is pretty awesome," Miranda said. "He can sing! I got to be in the studio with him when he was recording his song. I wrote him this big introductory tune that I think you guys are really going to enjoy." You can hear said big introductory tune "You're Welcome" below.
Despite Moana's stellar numbers, it hasn't been a great year for movies overall. Box office for the fall season, which runs from Sept. 6 to Nov. 17, is down 1.7% from last year.
