Disney's live-action Moana remake officially starts its "new era" today, which is corporate speak for "please forget the part where it flopped in theaters." The source headline calls it what it is: "Disney's $250 million flop." The "new era" is a redemption tour, and everybody in the building knows where these tours live. Expensive theatrical bombs don't get second runs in theaters. They get quietly repositioned as "a new chapter" for the home audience, where nobody has to buy a ticket to prove anything.

Quick damage report, since the trades would rather you not. The $250 million figure comes from the source coverage's characterization, so take it as the number attached to this project in the press rather than a studio ledger. Whatever the exact budget was, it was a mountain of money for a retread of a movie people can already watch, probably two rows down on whatever service Disney puts it on. It flopped at the box office, and even the headline writers stopped pretending otherwise.

The animated Moana from 2016 is genuinely good, by the way. Gorgeous water animation, a story that respected its audience. That's exactly why the remake stings. There was no reason for it to exist except that Disney spent a decade strip-mining its own library for parts, and eventually the mining equipment came for one of the few modern films that still worked. You can't improve on a movie people already love. All you can do is remind them the original exists, and audiences made their choice with their wallets.

Now comes the redemption pitch. "New era" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in today's coverage, so here's the translation: Disney wants a second wave of press built around family viewing, cozy holiday rewatches, kids who'll watch anything with a familiar title card. Redemption arcs for flops always run through streaming, because streaming numbers are a black box. Nobody outside the building can verify a "most-watched" claim, so the company can declare victory off a weekend of data no one will ever audit. Watch for the engagement victory lap. They always do one.

Will it work? For the kids, sure. A five-year-old doesn't know what a theatrical bomb is, and little kids watching a boat movie on a tablet is the last honest audience Disney has left. The redemption framing is nonsense, though. No amount of "most-streamed family film of the week" press releases un-spends that money. The adults who skipped it in theaters aren't suddenly curious now. They already made their decision, loudly, and that decision was "we already own this movie, animated, better."

Disney keeps refusing to learn the lesson here. Stop remaking your beloved films as live-action soaps. The formula has been on life support for years, and the audience stopped pretending to be surprised a long time ago. Every one of these projects follows the same arc: defensive press coverage, a flop, then a "new era" where we're all supposed to grade on a curve. We're not grading on a curve anymore.

So tonight, if you want a boat and an ocean and a story that actually lands, do what audiences have been doing all along. Fire up the 2016 original. It's better. And Disney knows it, which is the funniest part of all.