Directors Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller and David G. Derrick Jr. Talk ‘Moana 2’

On the heels of a record-breaking debut weekend, Disney’s animated musical comedy adventure, Moana 2 seems on course for one of the biggest box office runs of the year. With a 5-day take of $389 million globally, $225.2 domestically, the 3DCG sequel of the studio’s 2016 hit animated comedy, Moana, destroyed the U.S. all-time Thanksgiving box office take of $125 million set by 2019’s Frozen II.

Directed by Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller and David G. Derrick Jr., from a screenplay by Ledoux Miller and Jared Bush (who wrote the original film), Moana 2 reunites Moana (voice of Auli‘i Cravalho) and Maui (voice of Dwayne Johnson) three years later for an expansive new voyage alongside a crew of unlikely seafarers. After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.

Originally in production as a streaming series with Derrick at the helm, Moana 2 soon morphed into an animated feature. It marks the first time Walt Disney Animation Studios has produced one of its films from two locations - Burbank and Vancouver – with artists and technicians split between both locations.

AWN had a chance to speak to the three directors prior to the film’s stunning global box office debut. They discussed the challenges of weaving work developed for a series into a feature film, how they handled the workload as a directing team, and how they kept their eye on issues of Pacific Islander cultural sensitivity from the very beginning of development.

But first, enjoy the trailer and a few film clips:

Dan Sarto: Three directors is not unprecedented. But it’s not the norm, even on a film this big. How did you break down the work? By sequences? Do you each have areas where you focused your efforts? Tell me a little bit about how you divided and conquered this film, and what type of working dynamic you developed.

Dana Ledoux Miller: I don't think there's a hard and fast rule to how we divided everything. We've been collaborating from the start, from the story room, really, in development.

Jason Hand: Yeah. The story room is the key, honestly.

DLM: Getting on the same page about what's important and what's exciting about the story. And then like you said, it's a lot of work to tackle. I have learned a lot in the last year. We have had a very shared vision of what this film should be and what it has needed to live up to and exceed the first film. It’s definitely bigger. I don’t know if it’s better, but…

David G. Derrick Jr.: Oh yeah, it's really good.

DLM: We believe in the film in all the same ways. So [for us] it was divide and conquer, based on the needs of the show at the time and how best to continue moving the canoe forward, as we like to say. But it's such a collaborative art form that since we were all in the story room together and we've all made these fundamental choices for the film, we could trust each other in separate meetings and try to work together as much as we could.

JH: Growing up, Dave and I, we've been story artists most of our careers. But I remember when Dana came in and she brought a sketchbook, and I was like, “All right, cool.” We can all hang.

DGDJ: It's true. It's true.

JH: And so, I think where you're…

DLM: I actually write by hand.

JH: And so, with Dana's amazing words and obviously story, and Dave and I kicking things around visually as well as with story, it all sort of comes out from the story room into all the different departments. So, as we divided to finish this incredibly huge film on time, our core was the story.

DS: Talking about the directing dynamic between the three of you, all eyes are on you in a certain sense. And I realize that every production is different, and there are inherent pressures on any production at the studio. But the studio doesn't make that many big films like this. How do you as a team handle those days when you just flopped down on the couch and said, “We don't have a movie.” Because they happen, and despite your own frustration, everyone is taking their cues from you. How did you handle days like that?

JH: Yeah, I think you kind of said it right there. There are three of us. And one of us might be having a crappy day, which happens of course. But we always have the best interest of the film in our minds, and we're all trying to work together to do what’s best for the film. We all care deeply about the story and wanting to make something that's worthy of Disney Animation. I feel very strongly about that. I love the first film, and I think that drives us to make... I think it keeps us all sharp. We rely on each other to go, “Is this the best idea possible?” And the best idea would win. And I think some days, one of us has the best ideas. One of these other days, one or the other has the best idea… or [someone on] our crew does. I found it to be extremely helpful to have all of us on the film together.

DLM: There's not a lot of ego, I would say, amongst us. We really care passionately about Moana and the story. And so, these guys are saying, “The best fit for the story is what wins.” And I appreciate them both. They'd been living with this story a lot longer than I had when I came in to start writing on the series and then the change to the feature, and yet they welcomed me in. There was no…

JH: You brought good ideas.

DLM: Thank you. It felt like a very safe collaborative place. And I would say it's also a testament to our crew. We have a huge crew, and they all care just as passionately as we do about the show. And so it makes it easy.

DGDJ: One thing too, I wanted to mention, is we have incredible production support. On those days where you feel like you're just going to flop over, our production management teams here really look out for, I think, the welfare and benefit of all the people making this movie.

DS: It's interesting, and I don't know enough about the origin of a lot of these projects, but I don't think there are many projects that shifted from a series to a film. So how did you adapt the story from a TV series into a feature? Can you share a little bit about what was kept? Obviously, episodic requires a lot more story than even a long film. What was added? From a narrative standpoint, how did you rework the series and what were the challenges?

DLM: There were a couple of challenges, but what's so exciting is that everyone here at Disney Animation saw the potential for what the series was and recognized from the start that it deserved to be on a big screen. Making the transition, we had to help the story evolve into something that could fit into 90 minutes on a theater screen. But it really was about taking the core and the heart of the series and just fine-tuning all the things we loved most about the story and really letting Moana and Maui shine. Find the pieces of each of the characters in our ensemble that pushed against Moana in a way that made it worthy of a story for our heroine.

DGDJ: And also, in the transition, there were certain elements that moved into a feature where we could go bigger and better and even more insane than we would've done otherwise. The storm sequences that you're going to see at the end are absolutely bonkers. Every single department absolutely delivered.

JH: The chance to put it on the big screen allowed us to have a much larger appetite for what we could put on screen. And knowing that the first film is so beloved, we were really challenged to figure out a way to exceed that and go much bigger. Moving from a series to a feature really allowed for that to happen.

But I will say one of the great things we learned in our series was our new crew characters. In each one of the actual episodes, we were developing one of these crew characters. So, we were able to take those amazing nuggets that we learned from the series, and as we developed the feature, as Dana was saying, it was taking the best of that and how it pushed on Moana. It was like a workshop for each one of these new characters. It was really, really helpful. But then everything had to be funneled through Moana's storyline. That was the biggest and most difficult challenge.

DS: From a production standpoint, did you move over into the feature pipeline, or was the series already there? How did you make that transition if there even was a transition?

DGDJ: We kind of sat in it already.

JH: It already was, honestly. We were doing it through that same pipeline.

DS: And I'm assuming you got more time to produce the film at that point… or maybe not.

JH: I don't know. It feels like we didn't have enough time. No, I think once everybody understood and saw the power of what the film could possibly be, it was all hands on deck.  One studio coming together; it’s been pretty impressive how everybody's been working together.

DS: With the studio’s emphasis on the cultural foundation of the storytelling, designs, and music, how did you balance storytelling and characters that embrace more modern mannerism and ideas that today’s audiences will understand, and think is funny? And I know there's a balance and I know there's not one definitive answer but tell me a little bit about how you met that challenge.

DLM: Oh, that's a great question. And that's something Jared Bush and I had talked about a lot. He wrote the first film. I was always so impressed about the way he was able to weave in modern jokes. I think everyone remembers Maui with his animated tattoo. What it comes down to is we really just built characters that we can relate to, and we really tried to make sure that they feel grounded in the world that's around them, but they bring a lot of our own sensibilities to it. I think what people don't always understand about people of the Pacific is that we thrive on humor. That is a huge part of our culture.

And so, it was fun to find the humor. That's where most of the modernity comes from in our film… the jokes. But we keep an eye on everything. And the second something feels like it's taking us out of the world or pushing it just a little bit too far, we bounce it back because we never want a joke or a moment to feel false.

DGDJ: And the cultural elements are considered throughout, from the very beginning to the very end of the film. We had weekly meetings. So it's not something where we just checked ourselves at a certain point. It's been part of the growth and process of the story. So I think it's been very natural.

JH: With the musical element, some of the songs are obviously very steeped in the culture. And then we have songs that are really pushing the envelope musically, but still fit sonically within our world. But I think that's another really fun element we got to play with it. The songs are doing that same thing.

DS: The fact that this is a sequel, do you think that audiences are already familiar with the cultural underpinnings of the story, so your task to embrace the culture in this film is a bit easier?

DLM: I absolutely think that the first film is a touchpoint for a lot of people on the Pacific and Polynesia and Moana's world. And so, it does make our job a little bit easier in that regard because it creates a new understanding of the environment and the world that Moana lives in, in a way that we are just building on, not recreating. In the first film, they had to introduce audiences to a very specific place, sounds, looks, and characters. And now we get to just do the fun part and build on that. And we had a lot of fun doing it, which I think is clear on the screen when you see the film.

JH: Absolutely. I mean, obviously, [Moana directors] Ron [Clements] and John [Musker] set the standard. And like Dana was just suggesting, we stand on the shoulders of those amazing giants of our world, and we have such respect for what they did. And it does allow us to have a lot of fun, but I do think we get to introduce new elements from a cultural standpoint that add more to that story, hopefully.

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.