New concept art for Disney's 'Moana', 2016 release date

Disney changes ‘Moana’ title in Italy, because of porn star.

By Nick Vivarelli
"Variety" - Published November 18, 2016

ROME – Disney’s “Moana” will soon roll out across Italy – but under a new name, “Oceania,” a change widely believed to be prompted by the fact that the name of the film’s titular Polynesian princess is also that of a famous porn star.

For Italian adults at least, “Moana” is pretty much synonymous with Moana Pozzi, a porn actress and TV personality who is still a household name, even though she died in 1994.

While Disney Italy is not commenting on the name change, the company’s head of theatrical marketing in the country, Davide Romani, acknowledged during a meeting of Italian exhibitors last year that they were “thinking about this issue.” Shortly afterwards, Disney issued its first Italian poster for the pic, with “Oceania” as its title.

“There are two very simple reasons for the title change,” said an Italian marketing expert who did not want to be quoted by name. “One is that if you type ‘Moana’ and do a Google search in Italy you risk coming up with porn videos. And it’s very expensive and a waste of money to try and change that.”

The other reason cited by the marketing executive is that “in any Italian focus group ‘Moana’ is Moana Pozzi the porn star.”

Elsewhere in Europe, including France and Spain, the animated musical is being released as “Vaiana” for various reasons, including the fact that in Spain “Moana” is a registered brand.

It’s not unusual for Disney and other studios and international distributors to tailor film titles to national sensibilities.

Last year, drone warfare thriller “Eye in the Sky,” starring Helen Mirren, was retitled for Latin America with the Spanish words for “Invisible Enemy,” because of concerns that the large Catholic population there would perceive the original title as a reference to God watching from above.

Moana Pozzi, who appeared in dozens of porn movies, became a prominent Italian personality due to her personal charisma, which she used to cross over into TV and even politics, as co-founder of Italy’s Love Party in the early ’90s in tandem with another popular porn star, known as Cicciolina, who became a member of parliament and was briefly married U.S. artist Jeff Koons.

“Oceania,” as the Disney film is now known in Italy, is set for release in Italian movie theaters Dec. 22, one day ahead of the U.S. release.

Moana meet and greet at WDW Polynesian Resort

YouTube: Moana at WDW

and according to reports, she is next to the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland!

[ Edited by: KING BUSHWICH THE 33RD 2016-11-23 14:49 ]

In the old Tahitian Terrace (where Aladdin and Jasmine have been). Makes sense. Now just bring back the whole TT experience!

Ordered my book but through Amazon.
Just saw the movie, it's probably the most gorgeous animated film ever but the story is just alright with some holes in it. Main characters, Moana and Maui, are good. Overall it's very good. As a Hawaiian the Polynesian reprsentation was not as bad as imagined especially as compared to other Hollywood films. So everybody go see it and enjoy it. Not much tiki except for the gateway to the monster realm. Since the storyline involves Polynesian gods and demigods, I'm surprised that there wasn't much tiki . I guess it was a political thing on what kind of tiki would have been appropriate to the fictional location and time setting.
go and enjoy.

Moana is now meeting visitors at a meet-and-greet location set up in the fountain courtyard next to Aladdin's Oasis in Adventureland.

After receiving my book "The Art of Moana" one can note there was more tiki in the earlier concepts. Disney more than makes up in a recent but mostly unknown Mickey Mouse cartoon titled "Ku'u Lei Melody" (see EnchantedTikiGoth post 4-22-16. Here are some tiki pics.

There is much more so check it out in YouTube. The last one is Donald with a Enchanted Tiki Room image.

Tiki Movies & Tiki TV @ southseascinema.org

[ Edited by: creativenative 2017-03-10 01:42 ]

I also got the Moana book here after the tips posted earlier - I paid to get the copy with all the producer/director etc. signatures in the front page, and it's very cool. The art and graphics have great detail and depth. I'm sure it will inspire many artists.

I saw today they are advertising the release of Moana on DVD and Blu-Ray, and it includes a new "Maui Mini-Movie: Gone Fishing." I'll have to check it out.

The film was beautifully animated, and I understand the soundtrack is highly rated as well. I only saw it once, liked it, but overall the story didn't blow me away except for the quality of the visuals and the colors and other designs. But I enjoyed watching it despite that it wasn't as memorable as I had hoped. But I welcome almost any tropical / Polynesian / tiki film.

On 2017-03-10 06:18, AceExplorer wrote:

I saw today they are advertising the release of Moana on DVD and Blu-Ray, and it includes a new "Maui Mini-Movie: Gone Fishing." I'll have to check it out.

Missed it in theaters but just picked up the DVD. Looking forward to watching it sometime this week.

That "Ku'u Lei Melody" short is awesome.

Got the Blu-ray/DVD and in the bonus features of the Blu-ray one can view some of the easter eggs in the film. The two directors are in a couple of eggs. In the photo below, here they are as two tiki (the two on the left in the trio on the lower right) in a very quick and dark shot. Thank goodness for the pause button. If it wasn't for the exposure of the easter eggs I would not have noticed the tiki.

Here is a better daytime shot

[ Edited by: creativenative 2017-03-24 03:57 ]

[ Edited by: creativenative 2017-03-24 04:00 ]

Here's a bit more of what may qualify as easter eggs. I was on the IMDB page for the film yesterday and noticed some animations are activated if you hover or click your mouse over the characters in the header. I don't know if this is going to stay permanently, or if they take down these special headers after a film's peak popularity has passed. But I killed a few minutes at work exploring the various actions. Added bonus - I find the beautiful colors and the clarity of the images are really nice on the Moana IMDB page.