Warning: Some SPOILERS for Moana 2.Moana 2found its way to big-screen box-office success after a winding journey that began with its initial conception as a television series. The movie takes place a few years after the events ofMoana, and sees its titular protagonist older, more mature, and on a quest to find and unite people from across the ocean. Auli’I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson return to their respective roles as Moana and the demigod Maui in the sequel and are joined by a cast full of new and returning players.
Another key returning contributor fromMoanais composer Mark Mancina, who once again created a score rich in texture and emotional depth. Mancina is a composer with a resume full of classic films likeTwister, Speed,andTarzan, who also co-wrote the songs ofMufasa: The Lion Kingwith Lin-Manuel Miranda. ForMoana 2, Mancina aimed to one-up his work on the first movie to match the more adult take on Moana herself.
Moana 2’s Lightning God, Nalo, Fully Explained
While largely off-screen, Moana 2 features the overarching antagonist Nalo, a god of storms and lightning seeking power over the People of the Ocean.
ScreenRantspoke with Mark Mancina about his work on the score and songs ofMoana 2. Mancina discussed his collaboration with composer Opetaia Foa’i and songwriters Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow. The composer even briefly discussed working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the songs ofMufasa: The Lion Kingand shared his hopes for theMoanalive-action remake.
Mark Mancina Talks Moana 2’s Transition From A TV Show To A Feature Film
“They Rewrote The Entire Thing”
ScreenRant: I know this started as a TV show and found its way to film. I’m curious how involved you were when it was a TV show, and if you had to change a lot as this project changed.
Mark Mancina: As a matter of fact, yes, we did. In fact, some of the music that we wrote for the TV series, which was intended for different kinds of things, morphed into the movie. It wasn’t like they just took the TV series story and made it into a movie. They rewrote the entire thing.
Of the songs that we did early on, the only one that survived was “We’re Back”, the first song. We did two or three other songs, one called “Goat” and one called “Two Pieces of Me”, and they were really good, but they didn’t fit the storyline anymore. Even though we really almost finished them, they weren’t in. They’ll probably release them on something at some point.
Was it a totally different story? Was it still her going to Motufetū and trying to connect people?
Mark Mancina: It had that in it, but not for those reasons. Because it was a 10-part series, or whatever it was, they had so much time to spend on characters and fun or whatever. They didn’t really have to get to the main part of the story, which I don’t really think they had anyway. We didn’t even have episodes. We only saw one or two and they cut, I think, number three together, but it was very rough.
When they decided to make it into a movie, a year ago, I thought in two or three weeks we would have a script and then we would start working. We didn’t get the movie until May. We only had five months to do it. It was really a tight schedule.
Mancina Discusses Evolving The Music Of Moana 2
The Composer Wanted To “Make It More Sophisticated”
In terms of picking up from the first movie, Moana herself is older, she’s coming into her own, and years have passed. How much did that factor into how you wanted this score to sound as opposed to the first movie’s score?
Mark Mancina: A lot. My main emphasis on the music was to make it more grown-up and more refined because she’s more mature. You can tell. [With] the score, now that we had done one Moana and really knew what that was—what the elements are, what the combination of instruments is—I was like, “Let’s take it further, and let’s make it more grown up. Let’s make it more sophisticated. Let’s make it sound a lot better.”
What was the thing that, to you, made it sound more grown-up? Was it in terms of orchestration?
Mark Mancina: Yeah. I think the orchestration is better. It’s not quite as light or busy. It’s much stronger and more broad. The themes are different, and I think they’re more grown-up. Because we had “How Far I’ll Go” on the first movie, and that was kind of her theme, I used it within the score. In this movie, I did use some of the themes from the songs, but Motufetū has its own theme. In fact, on the soundtrack, we do a suite of the theme to Motufetū. It’s not really from a specific scene—it’s a group of stuff that I put together to record it as a separate piece of music.
What was your collaboration with Opetaia Foa’i like? This score felt like it incorporated more of the Pacific Islander elements more frequently.
Mark Mancina: I think it does. I think the thing is, on the first movie, we really didn’t know what we were doing as far as, “What is Moana, and what is the music supposed to be?” We had Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s a songwriter and a theater person, and then we had Opetaia, who’s a Pacific Islander, and then me, and my background is more European music than anything else. It was really a weird mix, and it worked.
From that movie, I was able to go, “Okay, here’s what’s in the toolbox. Let’s improve those tools. Let’s learn more about those tools. Let’s use Opetaia when I know we need that element that he adds.” It was kind of like a football team, and I’m the quarterback, and I kind of know my guys better. I know who to throw to, I know who to pass to, and I know who to hand off to, so it was a little bit more sophisticated of a way to work on it.
In terms of instrumentation, were there things that you purposefully leaned on more heavily with this movie than the first?
Mark Mancina: Marlon Espino, who is a composer who works in my studio, had a Pacific Island drum kit made, and we have that downstairs all mic’d up. If we wanted to do something, Marlon could run downstairs—he learned patterns and everything—and he could play it. In the final work, it was Marlon, Matatia, who is Opetaia’s son, and some drummers in LA, and we combined everybody for the big cues—the big action stuff. We created this really cool percussion section that wasn’t just Pacific Island. It was a mixture.
We do a lot of the guitar work, the ukulele, and a lot of the high-stringed instruments at my studio, and then we do the orchestra down at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. Then, Opetaia did all the vocal choir stuff down in his studio in Australia, so it’s really a fun layering type of thing. I have to put a lot of placeholders in my demos, and then as we start to do more and more, we replace the placeholders with the real thing, and it just gets better and better.
On Moana 2, “I Really Felt Like We Did Something Really God”
Actress Awhimai Fraser as Matangi in Moana 2.
What was it like working with your songwriters, Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, on this movie as opposed to Lin-Manuel Miranda? How different was that collaboration?
Mark Mancina: Emily is a really good keyboard player. Lin’s demos are very, very, very simple, which makes it great. His songs are simpler, his demos are simpler, and they’re more open for me, whereas Emily does a lot of stuff in her demos. In that regard, it was a little bit trickier. [Emily and Abigail] use a lot more chord changes, and they do a lot of modulations. They’re more complex when they write, which made the Pacific Island part of it a little harder because the Pacific Island music is really simple. In that regard, it was a little tricky, but the girls are really talented, and they’re not full of themselves at all. They’re young and they’re eager, and they had respect for my work, so we got along great. It was super fun.
I have a blast with Lin. I just did Mufasa with him. He and I have a great working relationship, so that’s already kind of established. [Moana 2] was new for me and new for the girls, and I think we worked out everything great. We got along great, and I really felt close to them. I really felt like we did something really good.
How much work goes into making the songs and the score sound cohesive? That sounds like it must have been a challenge.
Mark Mancina: Yes, but that’s always been my thing, since 1992. My first work, on The Lion King, was that idea. I did some score work on that first Lion King movie, and it was to keep everything sounding like it was coming from the same direction. I really emphasized that on Tarzan. On Tarzan, Phil Collins played drums on my score and played drums on the songs. I played bass and guitars on his songs, and I played on the score, so it kind of all sounded like one direction. When we did Moana, I wanted to do the same thing with Lin’s songs and with Opetaia. I wanted it to all sound like one concept. I don’t like musicals where, when the song starts, it sounds like it’s a completely different band or a different person. I like it to all feel like it’s coming from one place.
That was a little bit more challenging on this one, but because we have all those elements, we just keep all those elements. [We] make sure that the stick drums and all the things that we use are on everything. They have to be on the songs. Opetaia’s vocals need to be on the songs. All those elements need to be crossing the borders so that everything sounds similar.
The only song that stands out… in the first movie when Lin and I did “Shiny”, that was very, very quirky and kind of, “Whoa, where’d that come from?” That’s kind of what we did with “Get Lost” in this movie, where it’s kind of like, “Wait a minute, this is like an R&B song.” But it’s kind of fun.
Mancina Shares His Experience Working With Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“He’s Amazing”
Were you involved at all with the actors as they tracked vocals?
Mark Mancina: Sometimes and sometimes not. Usually the director is very involved, or the producer, who, in this case, was Jared Bush. He was very involved in the approach that the singers were taking. On these animated movies, the directors have a vision, and they’re ahead of you because they know kind of where it’s going. I wasn’t sometimes sure what they were going for because I didn’t know what the story was, because the story developed as we went. It’s very tricky.
I was curious how The Rock is in the vocal booth.
Mark Mancina: He’s amazing. He’s great. He’s very private about it. He doesn’t consider himself a singer, but the thing about him is he’s such a great actor. He just takes the acting and goes into the singing, and that’s what he does.
The enthusiasm comes through, so I was listening to his rap, like, “I wonder what that was like to record?”
Mark Mancina: Well, he had to practice it a lot. And that’s how he is in person, too. He’s just a cheerleader kind of guy. He’s just up. That same way that you feel when you see his acting—that’s just him.
“There Was A Lot Of Scrutiny” On Moana 2, Says Mancina
The Composer Felt There Was A Lot Of Pressure On The Sequel
Was there a specific sequence from this that felt like the biggest accomplishment, in the sense that it took the most back and forth with the directors or felt like a challenge?
Mark Mancina: All of it. There was a lot of scrutiny on this movie. I think there was so much pressure. Disney had done such a bomb with Wish. It was such a low point for them. There was so much [of an], “It’s got to be great,” feeling coming from Disney that it made it difficult.
But that being said, for me, I think a couple of places [stand out]. One was Maui pulling up the island. That music is intense, and it goes all over the place. We actually had a lot more vocals in it that they took out, and I think the vocals we had were really strong. They were concerned that it might be a little too scary, but I’m like, “Are you kidding? Kids see stuff way more scary than this nowadays.” But I’m really proud of that. That turned out really god.
Marlon did a lot of work on the underwater sequence towards the end, and I thought that was really strong too—very textural and very interesting and atmospheric. Then, I just love all the guitars. I love all the weird high-string guitars we did. We did most of them in my studio, they’ve got a really unique sound to them, and I like them a lot.
“I Think They’re Really Good”: Mancina Teases The Songs Of Mufasa: The Lion King
The Composer Reunited With Lin-Manuel Miranda On The Prequel
You’re working with Lin-Manuel again onMufasa: The Lion King. As someone who’s been a part ofThe Lion King’s journey for so long (note: Mancina also worked on the music of the Broadway musical), how do you feel like the music in this is going to hold up to people who love the stage show and the original movie?
Mark Mancina: First of all, I haven’t seen the [final cut of the] movie. When I did the songs, it was, gosh, a year ago or so. I have nothing to do with the score, but I do know the songs. I did those with Lin, and I think the songs are great. I really think the songs are strong. Is there a “Circle of Life”? No, but there are really good, really catchy songs, so I’ve got high hopes for them. I think people are going to really like them.
I think a lot of the critics that thought Lin was missing on Moana this time… I think it would have been really weird for Lin to do Moana 2 and then Mufasa. That would’ve been really oversaturated. So, I think his songs are going to be really welcome in Mufasa. I think people are going to really like them. I like them a lot. I think they’re really good.
Mancina Is Working On The Moana Live-Action Remake
“I Think It Could Be Really Great”
The firstMoanais getting the live-action treatment. Do you have hopes for that in terms of music or how the overall project is going to go?
Mark Mancina: I’m signed to do it, so I am doing it. The only thing that we’ve done so far is delivered basic tracks for the songs so that they can film. Generally, I think it’s going to be similar to the animated film, but [with] the music, again, I’m hoping that I’ll make it more sophisticated. I’d like to update it to make it more my own.
Of course, Opetaia now really has his vocal thing and the choral thing really dialed in, and the director that’s doing this is the guy that did Hamilton with Lin, and so it could be a really great team. Dwayne is the producer, so I think it could be really great. I have high hopes for it. I’m looking forward to doing it.
[Can you] tell me if there are new songs?
Mark Mancina: I don’t know. Generally, it’s the same songs, but are there going to be new songs? I would think, but I don’t know. We haven’t written anything, but who knows?
About Moana 2
Walt Disney Animation Studios’ epic animated musical “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.
Check out our otherMoana 2interviews here:
Moana 2is in theaters now, and theMoana 2soundtrack is streaming on digital platforms.
Moana 2
Cast
Moana 2 is the sequel to the 2016 animated film Moana. Directed by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller, the film continues the journey of Moana as she embarks on new adventures, exploring the vast Pacific Ocean while encountering new characters and challenges along the way.
