Summary

Lilo & Stitch may earn Disney's first $100 debut weekend of the year.
It's one live-action remake that many actually seem optimistic about.
Predicted to rule Memorial Day weekend, a contrast to Disney's sluggish 2024 box office.

Lilo & Stitch may seem to passersby as just another Disney live-action remake of its animated classics. Early box office tracking, however, says it will be Disney’s savior in 2025 after all.

The original Lilo & Stitch was released in the summer of 2002 and bowed with $273 million globally against an $80 million budget. Its remake had its trailer released a month ago to much praise, giving Disney its second-most viewed live-action trailer (158 million). From the clip and official synopsis, the movie would toe the same story path as its original: an unbreakable bond formed by an orphaned Hawaiian young girl named Lilo and a dog-like alien, “Stitch” (Experiment 626), originally a creation for destruction. Original filmmaker Chris Sanders is involved in the project, though not as director this time—that honor belongs to Dean Fleischer Camp from Marcel the Shell with Shoes On—he is simply reprising the iconic vocals for “Stitch.”

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By Henry-Damian Justice

May 23 is still more than a month away, but recent box office predictions from a Deadline report, courtesy of numbers from Quorum, show that Disney has reason to smile about Lilo & Stitch’s commercial future. The movie is expected to make a loud introduction at the U.S. Box office with a strong $100 million-plus opening weekend. Both Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning are expected to rule this year’s Memorial Day weekend (the latter movie’s opening is predicted to be a record among Mission: Impossible films), a relief from the sluggish 2024 Memorial Day weekend combo of $132.2 million from Mad Max: Furiosa and Garfield.

Lilo & Stitch May Earn Disney’s First $100 Debut Weekend of The Year

It’s One Live-Action Remake That Many Seem Positive About

It may seem a bit early to place a bet, but when one considers the usual accuracy of Quorum predictions and the fact that the movie’s social media campaign is yet to get off the ground, Lilo & Stitch could premiere significantly above $100 million. Even sticking with the initial tracking would still grant Disney its first true three-day nine-figure domestic opener of the year — Captain America: Brave New World opened across a four-day weekend that included President’s Day.

Three important contexts are necessary to understand the scale of Lilo & Stitch’s commercial outlook. First, the original animation opened with $35 million — a proud figure in 2002. Second, not even MCU’s Thunderbolts* is projected to post such numbers, eyeing a $70 million debut instead. Third, over the Memorial Day weekend, Lilo & Stitch would share audience attention with Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, a movie whose predecessor, Mission: Impossible — Fallout, opened with $62 million in 2018. The Deadline report, again citing Quorum, reveals that awareness levels for both films are at near-parity. Moreover, Mission: Impossible plus Tom Cruise equals box office darling. In other words, it’s likely to be a tough battle, hotter than that between Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 last December.

What industry analysts would be concerned with is less who wins and more of whether this year’s Memorial Day holiday would top the post-COVID best of 2022 ($223.7 million), spearheaded by Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, or the overall best of 2013 ($314.2 million).

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