top of page

Moana 2 Dance Challenge Trend and The TikTokification of Cinema

Writer's picture: Sorilbran StoneSorilbran Stone

How Storytelling is Shifting from Studios to Fans

If you’re anything like me, you notice the little things. This year, part of my family’s Thanksgiving Day festivities included a trip to see Moana 2 with my daughters. We were stoked—been waiting for months. MONTHS! It was a fun activity for Thanksgiving, for sure. But here’s what I noticed - early in the movie, there was a dance scene so short, so cute, and so doable that I immediately thought, This is going viral. Get ready for the Moana 2 dance challenge trend.



11M views. And this dance battle clip was posted by Disney.


I could already envision little girls and their Big Sis! (IYKYK) standing in living rooms doing the dance together. Little Sis is still living at home, Big Sis home from college. That moment made me think about how movies are increasingly folding into social media culture. It’s not just marketing anymore—it’s storytelling itself being built for the world of TikTok and Instagram reels.


This isn’t new, but it’s becoming more deliberate, more baked into the DNA of movies themselves.


Trigger warning: This is about to be some mom stuff, coupled with some Marvel stuff, from the perspective of a content marketing visibility strategist. So… if moms and geeks bore you, skip this particular article about marketing.



Before the Moana 2 Dance Challenge Trend,There Was Thanos

I think the first time I really paid attention to this trend was back in 2018, when Avengers: Infinity War dropped. Marvel launched an influencer campaign for Doctor Strange that I saw, but... meh. But when Infinity War rolled around, I wasn’t a die-hard Marvel fan at the time and simply couldn’t figure out from the trailers what the movie was even about. So, I wasn’t pressed to see it.


Comic book fans already knew what was up. Me? I had skipped Doctor Strange because he’s a wizard, and Guardians of the Galaxy because I wasn’t about to sit through two hours of a movie that starred a CGI raccoon. Plus, the villain was purple. It all just started to feel a little Neverending Storyish when I’d gotten used to Russo Brothers action sequences.

But then my social media feed blew up. There were memes - so many memes.


The Rock devastated in his car


meme of Dwayne Johnson sitting in a car after seeing Infinity War

Suge Knight Thanos (Internet for the win)



meme of Suge Knight Thanos

That viral graphic of Doctor Strange not spoiling the movie


meme of Doctor Strange not spoiling a movie he's seen 14M times.


And my favorite, a warning published from Marvel’s then Twitter account to would-be spoilers that “Thanos demands your silence.” 


post from Marvel Studios that #thanosdemandsyoursilence


Then my network of friends—lawyers, professors, teachers, geneticists—seemed to be emotionally reeling after seeing the movie. Looking back, I see that Infinity War wasn’t just a movie; it was a social moment. 


By the time my social feed convinced me to see the movie, my expectations were pretty high. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And they were right - that movie was devastating. It was quite the somber theatre experience. #shooketh

So... I bought the movie the very first day it was released. And I subscribed to Disney Plus when it was released for the privilege of watching Thanos snap away half of all living things whenever I feel the urge. Yay, me!🥴

 

At some point, the MCU stopped just being about the movies; Marvel has a sophisticated social marketing machine that turns fandom into fuel. (How else do you explain RDJ returning as Doom?)



The Dance of Movies and Memes

Fast forward to now, and the Infinity War playbook is being written into nearly every blockbuster—but with TikTok and Instagram in mind.


I mean, let’s talk about Deadpool x Wolverine. The opening montage with Ryan Reynolds going full chaos mode to Bye Bye Bye (and the choreography) didn’t just get a laugh—it put N*Sync back on the charts. My kids, who barely know what a boy band is, were suddenly doing that old-school choreography at an elementary school party with their friends.


And then there was Channing Tatum’s Gambit moment—“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this? Woo, I’m about to make a name for myself here today.” That meme exploded across TikTok and Instagram.



Listen… every time I saw Gambit in a different social situation, I laughed. Gambit in HR. Gambit with $20 at the Scholastic Book Fair. Gambit at the buffet. It was everywhere.

So much so that my seven-year-old cleverly co-opted it as we sat down at Kura for sushi: “Do you know how long Mom’s been waiting for this? She’s about to make a name for herself today.”


Took me out.


And then, as if there wasn’t already enough buzz, Ryan Reynolds casually published the post-credit scene that WASN’T IN THE MOVIE to his social account. Not in the theater, not in the extended cut. On. His. Feed.


INSANE.



Are They Writing Movies for the Interest Graph?

This isn’t just fun and games—it’s a masterclass in understanding the Interest Graph.

If you don’t know, the Interest Graph is the invisible web connecting people to the niches and topics they care about, no matter how obscure or specific. This is how fandom works in 2024. In the article I linked out to earlier in this paragraph, I talk about how I recently came across thumbnails for Infinity War and Captain America: Civil War, and the Infinity War thumbnail looked more like fan content than the promo still for one of the top-grossing movies of all time. It was raw, meme-able, and laser-focused on resonating with the communities that would carry it forward.


And it’s not just Marvel. Studios are building entire marketing strategies around the Interest Graph because they know that today’s awareness campaigns don’t end at the box office—they start there and explode online. TikTok dances, meme templates, and reaction videos (and prediction videos) become their own form of storytelling, each one adding a new layer to the original narrative.


Here’s the kicker: 80% of fans (ages 14-44) use YouTube weekly to consume content about the person or thing they’re a fan of. That means studios aren’t just making movies—they’re creating ecosystems where fans can discover, remix, and amplify their stories. And this is where the magic happens: when niche fan communities latch onto a moment, they amplify it far beyond its original context.


Take the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer as an example. It racked up an impressive 93 million views in 24 hours, but fan-made reaction videos, deep dives, and remixes generated an additional 192 million views in that same timeframe. The story didn’t just belong to Rockstar Games—it belonged to the fans.


Studios know this. That’s why Marvel and others design moments that don’t just live on the screen but thrive in the hands of creators. They know the 65% of Gen Z who consider themselves creators are ready to remix these moments into something entirely new. You can take a look at these stats and a ton more in the 2024 YouTube Culture and Trends Report



From Awareness to Discovery to Buzz to Loyalty to Legacy

Movies as Moments: From the Screen to the Feed

Watching Moana 2 with my daughters, that short, sweet dance scene was an instant standout. I could already envision the TikTok clips, the hashtag trends, and the Big Sis-Little Sis duos flooding my feed in the coming weeks.


This isn’t just marketing anymore—it’s social storytelling. Studios aren’t just selling movies; they’re selling moments. And it works. 66% of Gen Z report spending more time engaging with content about a movie than watching the movie itself. That stat says it all. (Bruv, if you knew how many hours I spent watching Gambit-related content on YouTube before Reynolds pushed that post-credit scene to his socials…)


And it’s not just the movies driving this engagement—it’s the entire theater experience. Take the Moana 2 boat backdrop at Emagine theaters. It wasn’t just a cute photo op; it was engineered to turn a family outing into a social media moment.




My kids grabbed the ropes (okay, “lines,” for the sailors out there) and posed like they were setting sail with Moana and Maui. Snap. Share. Repeat.


The same goes for Transformers One. My kids falling in line with Optimus and the gang in front of the the huge, colorful backdrop. Plus the take-home posters of Transformers One and Sonic 3 that lined the shelves outside the theater are now lining the walls of my kids’ game room. FYI, Transformers One was released September 20th and Sonic 3 will be out December 20th. So, we're talking about an extended engagement strategy.


Streaming’s Back-End Game: The Red One

I don’t know nearly enough about this topic, but I just find the whole ecosystem fascinating. So, pardon me if you know all about this and I sound like a toddler discovering frogs for the first time.


So, here goes…


Dance challenges, backdrops, and posters work brilliantly for theatrical releases, creating buzz on the front end. But I found out that streaming platforms play a different game—one that’s all about back-end engagement.


Take The Red One, Amazon’s $250 million holiday blockbuster. It didn’t break box office records, but based on what I read, that’s not how its success will be measured. For The Red One, engagement isn’t happening in theaters (okay, a little - my kids took pics in front of the backdrop for that movie, too) —it’s happening on Prime Video, in subscriptions and extended platform loyalty. My kids and I already have plans to load it up alongside Buddy the Elf on Christmas Eve. The movie has cross-generational appeal - Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson for the kiddos and hot Santa for me (bro, Santa's jacked! I said what I said).


Just like Moana 2 invites TikTokers to engage immediately, The Red One is built to keep viewers hooked long after the credits roll. Amazon knows a star-studded holiday tentpole can draw new subscribers who stick around for Jack Ryan. The Red One isn’t just a movie—it’s an attribution source, tracking success by how long viewers stay subscribed. That. Blew. My. Mind.


From Movies to Ecosystems: Loyalty and Stickiness

I totally get this. My Paramount subscription? I got it to binge the Mission Impossible franchise, and now I’m sticking around for the Frasier reboot. HBOMax? All the DCEU films (hello, Man of Steel). 😏


Whether it’s a viral dance challenge or a holiday blockbuster, the principle is the same: movies today aren’t just about ticket sales—they’re about creating cultural and platform-level stickiness. These strategies ensure the story, and the audience, stay engaged long after the final scene fades to black.



The Share-Worthy Future of Storytelling

Cinema isn’t just about what happens on the screen anymore. It’s about what happens after—on our timelines, in our reels, in our memes. Fans aren’t just consuming movies; we’re co-creating them.


For us as marketers (and as moms, geeks, and visibility strategists), the question isn’t if we should lean into this—it’s how. How do we make our own content and campaigns share-worthy? How do we spark moments that live on in people’s feeds?


Because the truth is, the lines between Hollywood and social media are blurring. And that’s not just the future of marketing—it’s the future of storytelling.


4 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page