An LA jury has sided with Disney in a long-running lawsuit brought by an animator who alleges that the media company stole the concept for its blockbuster 2016 feature film Moana—but the case isn’t closed just yet on the sequel.

In a verdict delivered yesterday, the eight-member jury found that Disney’s employees and Moana creators John Musker and Ron Clements never had access to the script or other materials for an IP that was conceptualized by plaintiff Buck Woodall. And given this determination, they did not need to address the other component of the complaint about alleged similarities between the two projects.

Woodall filed his suit in 2020, claiming that his animated film concept—which he shaped over the years in treatments titled Bucky the Wave Warrior (or simply Bucky)—also tags along with a rebellious teen going on a dangerous voyage, meeting a demigod and saving a Polynesian island. He has claimed that the materials for this story—including a screenplay—were shared in 2004 with Jenny Marchick, who at the time was a development exec at Mandeville Films (which had a first-look deal with Disney and also maintained offices on the company’s lot in Burbank).

Since he waited too long to file the plagiarism complaint, much of Woodall’s suit was actually barred by the three-year statute of limitations—leaving Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment division, which sells the DVDs of 2016’s Moana, as the only defendant in the case.

However, the Mouse House is not entirely in the clear yet. This January, Woodall filed a new lawsuit accusing Disney of plagiarizing Bucky, this time focusing on the billion-dollar sequel pic Moana 2 that was released in November 2024. This case is still active and pending, with Woodall seeking US$10 billion in damages.

Meanwhile, the Polynesian princess franchise is continuing to expand, with Disney currently working on a live-action adaptation of the original Moana movie that’s slated for release in July 2026.