The live-action Moana remake has found its director. Thomas Kail, Hamilton’s Tony Award winning director, has been tapped to helm the movie based on the popular 2016 animated film.

Kail has plenty of experience with grandiose musicals, having also directed In the Heights on Broadway, earning his first Tony nomination. He directed Grease: Live, for which he won an Emmy award, and he directed the Fosse/Verdon miniseries.

Disney announced plans to produce a live-action version of Moana earlier in 2023. Dwayne Johnson, who voiced the larger than life demigod Maui in the animated film, is returning to the role. Moana voice actress Auli’l Cravalho is not reprising her role for the new movie, however she is executive producing it with Scott Sheldon of Flynn Picture Co. The original movie’s screenwriter Jared Bush has written the remake script with Dana LeDoux Miller.

Inspired by Polynesian myths, Moana is about a young woman who sets out on a quest to return a mystical relic to the goddess Te Fiti in the hopes of saving her home. On her journey, she frees Maui from his prison, is held captive by a giant crab, and proves to herself that she can become the island’s chief.

Johnson is producing the movie with Seven Bucks Productions along with Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia, and Beau Flynn is producing through Flynn Picture Co.