Moana was a modest hit for Disney when it was released in 2016 – it was the 7th biggest hit of the year for the studio, behind the likes of Zootopia and Finding Dory. Moana certainly wasn’t a flop, but it’s also fair to say that it wasn’t an immediate smash hit for Disney. But […]
I heard that Disney had a special treatment for the native language in the first movie. It was well received, and they specifically didn’t have the characters speak English during songs that featured the native language. I forget how it was worded. Does anyone have a link to this analysis?
They hired native singers for the soundtrack. They also had most of the original voice actors in for an official Hawaiian language dub, which they distributed to schools in Hawaii (but did not release for home use). The Hawaiian dub came out in 2018, two years after the original release. Still, remarkable for an almost extinct language.
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/37362561/moana-has-been-dubbed-in-46-languages-now-disney-is-adding-hawaiian-to-the-list/