Warning: Some SPOILERS for Moana 2.Moana 2 found its path to big-screen box office success after a tortuous journey that began with its initial conception as a television series. The film takes place a few years after the events of Moanaand sees its titular protagonist older, more mature and on a mission to find and unite people across the ocean. Auli'I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson return to their respective roles as Moana and the demigod Maui in the sequel and join a cast full of new and returning players.
Another important collaborator who returned from Moana is composer Mark Mancina, who has once again created a score rich in texture and emotional depth. Mancina is a composer with a resume full of classic films such as Twister, Speed, and Tarzanwho also co-wrote the songs for Mufasa: The Lion King with Lin-Manuel Miranda. To Moana 2Mancina intended to improve his work on the first film to match the more adult vision of Moana herself.
TelaRant spoke with Mark Mancina about his work on the score and songs for Moana 2. Mancina discussed his collaboration with composer Opetaia Foa'i and songwriters Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow. The composer also briefly discussed working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the songs for Mufasa: The Lion King and shared his hopes for the Moana live action remake.
Mark Mancina Talks Moana 2's Transition From TV Show to Feature Film
“They rewrote everything”
ScreenRant: I know this started as a TV show and made its way to the movies. 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: Actually, yes, we did. In fact, some of the songs we wrote for the TV show, meant for different kinds of things, made it into the movie. It wasn't like they just took the story from the TV series and turned it into a movie. They rewrote everything.
Of the songs we did at the beginning, the only one that survived was “We're Back”, the first song. We did two or three other songs, one called “Goat” and another called “Two Pieces of Me,” and they were really good, but they didn't fit into the plot anymore. Even though we almost finished them, they weren't present. They'll probably release them in something at some point.
Was it a totally different story? Was it still her going to Motufetū and trying to connect people?
Mark Mancina: There was that, but not for those reasons. Because it was a 10-part series, or whatever it was, they had a lot of time to dedicate to the characters and the fun or whatever. They didn't really need to get to the main part of the story, which I really don't think they did. We didn't even have episodes. We only saw one or two and they cut, I think, number three together, but it was very difficult.
When they decided to make it into a film a year ago, I thought in two or three weeks we would have a script and then we would start working. We only received the film in May. We only had five months to do this. It was really a tight schedule.
Mancina Discusses the Evolution of Moana 2's Music
The composer wanted to “make it more sophisticated”
In terms of the revival of the first film, Moana herself is older, she's recovering, and years have passed. How much did that influence how you wanted this soundtrack to sound as opposed to the first film's soundtrack?
Mark Mancina: A lot. My main emphasis on the song was to make it more adult and refined because it is more mature. You can tell. [With] the score, now that we had done a Moana and we actually knew what it was – what the elements are, what the instrument combination is – I thought, “Let's go further and make it more adult. Let's make it more sophisticated. Let’s make it sound a lot better.”
What was it that, for you, made it seem more adult? Was it in terms of orchestration?
Mark Mancina: Yes. I think the orchestration is better. It's not that bright or busy. It is much stronger and broader. The themes are different and I think they are more adult. Since we had “How Far I'll Go” in the first film, and that was her theme, I used it in the soundtrack. In this film, I used some themes from the songs, but Motufetū has its own theme. In fact, on the soundtrack we do a suite of the Motufetū theme. It's not actually from a specific scene – it's a group of things I put together to record as a separate piece of music.
How was your collaboration with Opetaia Foa'i? This score seemed to incorporate more Pacific Island elements more often.
Mark Mancina: I think so. I think the issue is, in the first movie, we didn't really know what we were doing as far as, “What is Moana and what should the song be?” We had Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is a composer and theater specialist, and then we had Opetaia, who is from the Pacific Islands, and then me, and my background is more European music than anything else. It was a really weird mix and it worked.
From that film, I was able to say, “Okay, here’s what’s in the toolbox. Let's improve these tools. Let's learn more about these tools. We will use Opetaia when I know we need that element it adds.” It was like a football team, and I'm the quarterback and I kind of know my guys best. I know who to throw to, I know who to pass to, and I know who to hand it to, so it was a little more sophisticated way of working on it.
In terms of instrumentation, were there things you purposely leaned on more heavily in this film than in the first?
Mark Mancina: Marlon Espino, who is a composer who works in my studio, had Pacific Island drums made, and we have everything downstairs with a microphone. If we wanted to do something, Marlon could run down – he learned patterns and everything – and he could play. In the final work, it was Marlon, Matatia, who is Opetaia's son, and some drummers from Los Angeles, and we combined everyone for the big cues – the big action. We created a really cool percussion section that wasn't just Pacific Island. It was a mix.
We do a lot of guitar work, ukulele work, and a lot of high string instruments in my studio, and then we do the orchestra at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. So Opetaia did all the vocal choir stuff in his studio in Australia, so it's a really fun layered kind of thing. I have to put a lot of placeholders in my demos, and as we start doing more and more, we replace the placeholders with real ones, and everything gets better and better.
Mancina compares his collaborations with the composers of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Moana 2
In Moana 2, “I really felt like we did something really divine”
What was it like working with your composers, Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, on this film instead of Lin-Manuel Miranda? How different was this collaboration?
Mark Mancina: Emily is a great keyboard player. Lin's demos are very, very, very simple, which makes them great. Her songs are simpler, her demos are simpler and they're more open to me, whereas Emily does a lot of things in her demos. In that respect, it was a little more complicated. [Emily and Abigail] they use a lot more chord changes and do a lot of modulations. They're more complex when they write, which made the Pacific Island part a little more difficult because Pacific Island music is so simple. In that aspect it was a little complicated, but the girls are very talented and not at all full of themselves. They are young and eager and respect my work, so we got along really well. It was really fun.
I have a lot of fun 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] It was new for me and new for the girls, and I think we handled it pretty well. We got along really well and I really felt close to them. I really felt like we did something really good.
How much work does it take to make the songs and score sound cohesive? It seems like it must have been a challenge.
Mark Mancina: Yes, but it's always been my thing, since 1992. My first work, on The Lion King, was this idea. I did some soundtrack work for the first Lion King movie, and it was to keep everything sounding like it was coming from the same direction. I really emphasized this in Tarzan. On Tarzan, Phil Collins played drums on my score and played drums on the songs. I played bass and guitar on his songs and played on the score, so it all felt like one direction. When we made Moana, I wanted to do the same thing with Lin's songs and with Opetaia. I wanted everything to sound like a concept. I don't like musicals where, when the music starts, it seems like it's a completely different band or a different person. I like that everything seems to come from one place.
That was a little more challenging in this case, but since we have all these elements, we just kept them. [We] make sure the drums and all the things we use are in everything. They have to be in the songs. Opetaia's vocals need to be in the songs. All of these elements need to cross borders to make everything look similar.
The one song that stands out… in the first movie, when Lin and I did “Shiny,” it was really, really quirky and kind of like, “Wow, where did that come from?” That's what we did with “Get Lost” in this movie, where it's like, “Wait a minute, this is like an R&B song.” But it's fun.
Mancina shares his experience working with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
“He is incredible”
Were you involved with the actors as they recorded the vocals?
Mark Mancina: Sometimes and sometimes not. Usually the director is very involved, or the producer, which in this case was Jared Bush. He was very involved in the approach the singers were taking. In these animated films, the directors have a vision and they are in front of it because they know where it is going to lead. Sometimes I wasn't sure what they wanted because I didn't know what the story was, because the story developed as we went along. It's very complicated.
I was curious to know how The Rock is in the vocal booth.
Mark Mancina: He's amazing. He's great. He's very secretive about it. He doesn't consider himself a singer, but the thing about him is that he's a great actor. He just acts and starts singing, and that's what he does.
The enthusiasm showed, so I was listening to his rap, like, “I wonder what it was like recording?”
Mark Mancina: Well, he had to practice a lot. And that's how he is in person too. He's just the cheerleader type. He just woke up. The same way you feel when you see his performance – it'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 sequence
Was there a specific sequence that felt like the biggest achievement, in the sense that it required more back and forth from the directors or felt like a challenge?
Mark Mancina: All of it. There was a lot of scrutiny on this film. I think there was a lot of pressure. Disney made a bomb with Wish. It was such a low point for them. There was so much [of an]“It has to be great,” feeling coming from Disney that this made it difficult.
But that being said, for me, I think some places [stand out]. One of them was Maui arriving on the island. This song is intense and goes everywhere. We actually had a lot more vocals than they took away, and I think the vocals we had were very strong. They were worried it might be a little scary, but I thought, “Are you kidding? Kids see much scarier things than that these days.” But I'm very proud of it. This turned out to actually be God.
Marlon did a lot of work on the underwater sequence at the end, and I thought it was really strong too – very textural and very interesting and atmospheric. So I just love all guitars. I love all the weird high string guitars we made. We made most of them in my studio, they have a really unique sound and I really like them.
“I think they’re really good”: Mancina teases Mufasa: The Lion King songs
The composer reunited with Lin-Manuel Miranda in the prequel
You are working with Lin-Manuel again Mufasa: The Lion King. As someone who was part The Lion KingThe journey has been so long (note: Mancina also worked on the music for the Broadway musical), how do you think the music will appeal to people who love the show and the original film?
Mark Mancina: First of all, I didn't see the [final cut of the] film. When I made the songs, it was, my God, about a year ago. I have nothing to do with the score, but I know the songs. I did it 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 and catchy songs, so I have high hopes for them. I think people will really like them.
I think a lot of critics thought Lin was missing from Moana this time… I think it would have been really weird for Lin to do Moana 2 and then Mufasa. That would have been really oversaturated. So, I think his songs will be very welcome on Mufasa. I think people will really like them. I like them a lot. I think they are very good.
Mancina is working on the live-action remake of Moana
“I think it could be really great”
The first Moana is getting the live-action treatment. Do you have hopes for that in terms of the music or what the overall project will be like?
Mark Mancina: I'm hired to do this, so I'm doing it. The only thing we've done so far is deliver the basic tracks of the songs so they can be filmed. Generally, I think it will be similar to the animated film, but [with] the music, again, I hope to make it more sophisticated. I would like to update it to make it more mine.
Of course, Opetaia now really has her vocal part and her choral part really dialed in, and the director who's doing it is the guy who did Hamilton with Lin, and so it could be a great team. Dwayne is the producer, so I think it could be great. I have high hopes for that. I'm looking forward to doing this.
[Can you] Tell me if there are new songs?
Mark Mancina: I don't know. It's usually the same songs, but will there be new songs? I would think, but I don't know. We didn't write 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 sailors. After receiving an unexpected phone call from her ancestors, Moana must travel to the distant seas of Oceania and dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she has ever faced.
Check out our others Moana 2 interviews here:
Moana 2 is in theaters now, and the Moana 2 the soundtrack is being streamed on digital platforms.