Disney scores record-breaking $183M opening with a movie meant for Disney Plus

If Disney wasn’t already rethinking its Disney Plus streaming business before the gargantuan four-day holiday-weekend opening of Lilo & Stitch, it certainly will be now. The live-action remake — originally intended to bow on Disney Plus — crushed at the U.S. box office, grossing $183 million over the Memorial Day weekend (with a haul of over $304 million worldwide). It’s a staggering number for a Disney character who has, through merchandise and mascotability, far outpaced reception to the original movie; Lilo & Stitch only made $145.8 million over its complete theatrical run in 2002. 

Disney’s blockbuster win comes at a time when the theatrical business is struggling to lure in audiences to achieve the box-office numbers of a pre-pandemic era. The studios are also contending with their own internal logic: Development on a Lilo & Stitch remake began all the way back in 2016, with an official announcement arriving in 2018, when Disney was poised to send the feature straight to its then-untitled Netflix competitor. 

With COVID-19 impacting development and production, Lilo & Stitch only took shape in earnest in 2022, when Marcel the Shell’s Dean Fleischer Camp came on board to replace Jon Chu (Wicked) as director — but even then the remake was still slated for Disney Plus. A release calendar jumbled by the pandemic and delays from the Hollywood strikes paved the way for Lilo & Stitch to arrive in theaters. Reassembling Moana 2 from a Disney Plus series into a movie that grossed over $1 billion probably didn’t hurt the ambitious plan to open Lilo & Stitch in 4,410 theaters. 

Lilo & Stitch makes its humongous bank alongside another cheerleader for the theatrical business. Tom Cruise, who fought for Top Gun: Maverick’s post-pandemic theatrical release to the tune of $1.4 billion worldwide, returned to the big screen this weekend with Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. The conclusion-ish to the 30-year-old action series started off its run with $77 million and faces little competition in the weeks ahead. Maybe every weekend just needs a Barbenheimer? 

The days of Disney Plus being a premium content platform may be over. CEO Bob Iger has been open about the need to scale down Marvel’s output on the service. Not even fans of Andor can justify a $645 million two-season price tag, and rightfully proclaimed the end of an era after the recent finale. And Disney has its own blockbuster-at-scale franchises to produce for the platform: This summer’s Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires should be as big or bigger of a hit with the Gen Z contingent with anything the studios have planned for theaters this summer.

But whatever you think of Disney’s animation-to-live-action-remake churn, Lilo & Stitch leading a record-breaking Memorial Day weekend — a $326.7 million total box office buoyed by the continued success of Final Destination: Bloodlines, Thunderbolts*, and Sinners — instead of being a droplet in a sea of streaming #content is a win for people who like The Movies.