With the Moana 2 release date just about here, critics already have a lot to say about the sequel’s music from The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’s Barlow & Bear (including through our Moana 2 review). Considering the songwriting duo are following Lin-Manuel Miranda, there had to be a lot of pressure to write music the team at Disney approved of. As they shared with CinemaBlend, when it came to presenting Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with his follow-up to “You’re Welcome,” it was an emotional rollercoaster for the pair.
When I had the chance to speak to Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear at the Hawaii press junket for Moana 2, they shared a hilarious (but very scary) story about what happened when they wrote “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” for The Rock. In Barlow’s words:
Oh yeah, he is Maui, so he added everything we possibly could have asked for to the song, but he FaceTimed us from our boss's phone and neither of us were ready for it. I was like, literally in my turban and a robe getting ready for a show, and Emily was in the car and he was so wonderful about it and said it gave him chills and that he was excited to record it.
In the interview, Barlow shared that Johnson added “everything” they could have “possibly asked for” into Maui’s new song, but when they first got the track to him, they were stressed. As Bear shared:
But the full story of that was, we knew they were gonna play him the song at the end of one of his dialogue records, and we just didn't hear anything for hours. And we were like, ‘Oh, he hates it. We're gonna have to go back to ground zero. Like, this is terrible. This is horrible.’ And then he FaceTimed us and he is like, ‘I love it girls. I love it so much’. He gave me chills. He loved it, blah, blah, blah.
It’s got to be incredibly nerve-wracking to write a song for none-other-than The Rock, but clearly, they sold the superstar with their vision of “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” The song is based on the popular Hawaiian expression “Chee hoo” which is a phrase that signifies excitement and joy, and it's sung to Moana when she really needs some words of encouragement from Maui.
Barlow & Bear have been writing songs for much of their lives, but Moana 2 was their first chance to write music for Disney following their Grammy-winning viral musical phenomenon about Bridgerton. CinemaBlend also spoke to Disney’s new chief creative officer Jared Bush (who also wrote the screenplay for the first Moana) while in Oahu about the film's songwriters, and he added his own thoughts about Maui’s new song. As Bush said:
Honestly, working with DJ is one of my most favorite things in the world. We had a great time in the first Moana. Coming back to this story, we wanted to continue to develop who Maui was, but we also knew he had to have a killer song. And that was like from day one, there's very high expectations for that. And I'd say that was something that we knew we wanted to have a different flavor than in the first film, but at the same time feel very much like Maui. And so in the first movie, Moana really helped him up when he was at his lowest. And in this story, it's Moana who really goes through this rough patch. And to have him lift her up with this unbelievable bonker song, I think we were all really anticipating that moment that we got to hear him sing it for the first time. But even playing it for the first time, he listened to it and looked over and just pulled his sleeve up and he had goosebumps all down his arm. It was like the best day.
Returning to Moana 2 was important to Dwayne Johnson given his own daughters “see themselves” in the Disney princess. (His daughters even have a cameo in the new movie). Moana 2 allows Johnson to represent his own Polynesian heritage by voicing a beloved Disney character and great hero from Polynesian mythology. The actor has also spoken before about how the sequel allowed him to challenge ideas of masculinity with Maui’s latest adventure.
So, all around, this project on the 2024 movie schedule and its music mean a lot to The Rock and those who made the film.
Moana 2 hits theaters on November 27. You can check out what other upcoming Disney movies are on the way here on CinemaBlend.
