There is a version of a movie promotion that feels like a transaction. A brand gives a product a character, the studio gets visibility, the brand gets association with a recognizable IP, and everyone moves on. And then there is the version that actually means something, where the partnership makes so much cultural and geographic sense that the promotion itself becomes part of the story.
Hawaiian Airlines just delivered the second kind for Disney's live-action Moana, and the photos that dropped this week prove it.
What Was Unveiled for Moana
Three specially designed Moana-themed aircraft are heading to the skies ahead of the film's July 10 theatrical debut. The first design has been revealed on an Airbus A321neo, with two additional liveries still to come on an Airbus A330 and a Boeing 717.
The exterior of the A321neo features Maui's iconic fishhook running across the body of the plane, one of the most recognizable visual symbols in the entire Moana universe. Inside the cabin, characters from the film appear on the overhead luggage bins and throughout the interior, including the coconut-armored Kakamora, Heihei the chicken, and Pua the pig. The message carried across all three aircraft is “Voyage beyond the reef,” a phrase that directly connects to the film's central themes of exploration and wayfinding.
Hawaiian Airlines previously designed aircraft for the original 2016 animated Moana and for Moana 2, making this third collaboration a continuation of a relationship that has grown alongside the franchise across multiple films and multiple years.
Why This Works
The reason this promotion lands differently from a standard studio tie-in is straightforward. Hawaiian Airlines is the airline of Hawaii, a place whose cultural foundation rests on a legacy of Pacific navigation using traditional wayfinding techniques. That is not background information. That is the actual lived identity of the place this airline calls home.
Moana is a story about a Polynesian voyager who answers the ocean's call and crosses the Pacific to save her people using the same wayfinding tradition that defines Hawaiian culture. Putting that story on planes that fly above that same ocean is not a creative stretch. It is a natural extension of both the airline's identity and the film's meaning, and the care that went into the aircraft's design reflects that alignment, visible in every photo that dropped this week.
The Film
Disney's live-action Moana opens in theaters on July 10, 2026, reimagining the original animated film, which grossed more than $680 million worldwide and found an even larger audience on Disney+ in the years since its 2016 release. Catherine Laga'aia plays Moana, the young voyager from the island of Motunui who sets sail to restore prosperity to her people. Dwayne Johnson returns as the demigod Maui in live-action for the first time, and the recently released trailer confirmed that Jemaine Clement will reprise his role as Tamatoa, the scene-stealing coconut crab villain whose performance of the Lin-Manuel Miranda song “Shiny” remains one of the most memorable sequences in the original animated film.
Auli'i Cravalho, who voiced Moana in the 2016 film, did not return to act in the live-action version but serves as an executive producer on the adaptation. A behind-the-scenes featurette released alongside the promotional campaign includes insights from director Thomas Kail, Johnson, Miranda, and Cravalho on the casting process and the film's creative direction.
The trailer has drawn mixed reactions from fans, with some questioning the decision to remake a film that is less than a decade old and others noting how closely the live-action version appears to follow the original animated story beat for beat.
What Comes Next for Moana
The remaining two aircraft designs will be revealed ahead of July 10. For passengers who board one of the three Hawaiian Airlines Moana aircraft between now and the film's opening, the experience inside the cabin is going to look considerably different from a standard flight.
Maui's fishhook on the fuselage. The Kakamora and Heihei in the overhead bins. A Pacific Ocean visible through the window below and a Polynesian voyager's story wrapped around the exterior of the plane above it.
Disney's live-action Moana opens July 10. Hawaiian Airlines already has it in the air.
