Disney Wins ‘Moana’ Copyright Infringement Lawsuit, Sparing Home Entertainment Biz
Moana
March 10, 2025
A Los Angeles jury March 10 ruled that Disney’s animated box office hit Moana and sequel Moana 2 did not violate a third-party’s copyrighted animated fantasy storyline about a young Hawaiian surfer named “Bucky.”
Plaintiff Buck Woodall, on April 24, 2020, filed a complaint in Los Angeles District Court alleging that his intellectual property trademarks found there way into the original Moana movie, released over the Thanksgiving weekend in 2016, generating $643.3 million at the global box office after a 23-week run.
The suit alleged that Woodall, in 2004, sent an outline of “Bucky” to the stepsister of his brother’s wife, who, at the time worked on the Disney lot in Burbank, Calif. He sent her a full screenplay in 2011 when she worked for Sony Pictures, looking to find studio interest. Somehow, the screenplay ended up at Disney in Moana.
Woodall claimed that numerous original plot points and unique characteristics from “Bucky” found their way into Moana, which Disney lawyers argued could also be found in numerous other Disney animated titles, including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Hercules, among others.
Since Woodall filed his original complaint more than three years after the statute of limitations, he was seeking damages related to the movie’s release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in 2017. An amended complaint sought to include sequel Moana 2, which was released on Nov. 27, 2024, and has generated $1.06 billion in ticket sales thus far.
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