Global box office update: Live-action Moana opening tops $95M worldwide, while Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Soccer launches to about $74M

The latest global box office update from Deadline puts Disney’s live-action “Moana” at more than $95 million for its worldwide opening, even as the outlet characterizes the debut as underwhelming against expectations for a title carrying the Moana brand. In the same reporting window, Stephen Chow’s “Kung Fu Soccer” is described as launching with approximately $74 million worldwide, giving Chow’s film the stronger comparative first-weekend position on a global basis.

Deadline links the performance gap primarily to timing. The outlet says the live-action “Moana” release landed too close to the calendar placement of Thanksgiving 2024’s “Moana 2,” suggesting that the proximity of the two releases limited the amount of new audience demand that could be captured by the earlier-launching title.

The box office framing comes amid ongoing pressure that studios face when closely spaced sequels, franchise iterations, or thematically related releases compete for the same family audiences and holiday viewing slots. Deadline’s write-up indicates that the scheduling overlap is the key factor in understanding why the live-action “Moana” worldwide opening did not translate into the kind of robust first-week dominance the headline figure might otherwise suggest.

Deadline also notes that its coverage over the weekend emphasized “product, as well as time and space,” positioning the opening numbers as a function of how the release fits into the broader global theatrical calendar rather than as a response to unverified “buzz.” The outlet’s account treats audience reaction as secondary to the distribution timeline.

In its comparison, Deadline’s headline figures provide the main quantitative reference points for readers: “Moana” at over $95 million worldwide for the opening period, and “Kung Fu Soccer” at about $74 million worldwide. The reporting presents the two debuts side by side to illustrate how relative performance can diverge even when both films post large absolute worldwide totals.

Deadline’s reporting further suggests that exhibitors and distributors will be watching not only opening weekend totals but also how quickly momentum translates into subsequent holds, especially when competing films are aligned to the same seasonal viewing habits. For franchises, the implication is that the market may treat closely spaced releases as cannibalizing rather than additive.

The next development for theater stakeholders is follow-through. Deadline’s update indicates that the story of this weekend’s box office will be clarified by later figures showing whether either film can sustain attendance in the weeks ahead, or whether timing-related effects reduce the audience pool for subsequent showings.