Here's why Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't return for 'Moana 2'
American songwriter and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda revealed why he didn't return to the second installment of the beloved Disney film Moana.
"It didn't line up that way actually," he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, highlighting that it "wasn't a choice" between working on the Mufasa: The Lion King and Moana 2.
"I got the script for Mufasa when I had just finished Encanto, and so I started working on that at the top of '22. So, Moana 2 was already in process as a TV series with Emily [Bear] and Abigail [Barlow]. So then, when that decision got made to turn that into a movie, they were already cooking."
The Hamilton creator also commended Auliʻi Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson's performances in the sequel, in which they reprised their roles as the voices of Moana and the shape-shifting demi-god Maui, respectively.
"They're so talented," he said. "More than anything, what's so thrilling is we hired Auli'i when she was 14 years old, and the stuff she's singing in this new film is so just technically difficult, to see how far she's come as a performer is really extraordinary."
Miranda wrote the music for the first installment of Moana, including How Far I'll Go—which received an Oscar nomination—You're Welcome, and We Know the Way.
He also worked on another major Disney project: the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid in 2023. He co-wrote several new songs for this version of the beloved classic alongside composer Alan Menken, the writer of the original score.
Meanwhile, Bear and Barlow, the first all-female songwriting team to write songs for a Disney animated film and the youngest composers for the job, wrote songs for Moana 2, including Beyond, Can I Get a Chee Hoo? and We're Back.
Moana 2 features the strong-willed heroine's reunion with the shape-shifting demi-god Maui three years after the first film 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.
