Hawaiki via Spirits Bay, Cape Reinga and the Three Kings Islands at the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand — giving a possible pointer as to the direction in which Hawaiki may lie. Until , many anthropologists had doubts that the canoe-legends described a deliberate migration, tending to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores. In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl sailed the "Kon-Tiki", a balsa-wood raft, from South America into the Pacific in an attempt to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean,
Kon-Tiki (2012 film) 40th Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund. A North American screening took place at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Weinstein Company acquired the distribution rights for North America and Italy in November 2012. "Kon-Tiki" opened in Norway on 24 August 2012, setting a weekend national box office record. It became the highest-grossing of 2012 in Norway, earning $14,111,514, and overtaking the film "", also by directors Rønning and Sandberg. "Kon-Tiki" opened in the United States on 26 April 2013 in a limited release, and was screened in three cinemas. On 3 May 2013, the film expanded to screen in