5 Reasons Why ‘Lilo & Stitch’ Shattered Memorial Day Box Office Records

Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” tore into the global box office over Memorial Day weekend with a record-breaking $183 million domestically and $341 million worldwide — powered by a potent combination of nostalgia, family friendly characters and a resurgent theatrical marketplace.

Those ticket sales overtook 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick” ($126 million over the weekend and $160 million through the four days) as the biggest Memorial Day weekend debut in history. And “Lilo & Stitch” secured the second-largest start across any four-day holiday weekend, behind only 2018’s “Black Panther,” which amassed $242 million over Presidents’ Day.

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“This is a sensational opening,” says David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “It’s a crowd-pleaser.”

“Lilo & Stitch” also confirms that Disney just needs to be more selective in terms of the studio’s live action remakes. Earlier this year, its “Snow White” reboot bombed with $204 million globally against a $250 million budget — partially because that nearly 100-year-old story doesn’t have cultural cache with today’s audiences. That’s clearly not true for the $100 million-budgeted “Lilo & Stitch,” which is adapted from the 2002 animated film — and earned more in four days than “Snow White” did during its entire box office run.

Here are five reasons why “Lilo & Stitch” shattered box office records in its opening weekend:

Your parents’ — not your great grandparents’ — favorite cartoon

“Lilo & Stitch” — a comedy about a chaotic alien who crash-lands in Hawaii and gets adopted by a young girl and her older sister — toppled into theaters with ideal distance from the original adventure, which has become a family favorite on Disney+ over the last 23 years. It’s been enough time that millennials have a rosy sense of nostalgia for the chaotic blue creature, and now they’re bringing their kids to the movies. But it hasn’t been too long where people forgot the charm of the first film. Prior live-action juggernauts, such as “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King,” followed a similar formula — those billion-dollar hits were based on ’90s-era Disney classics.

Meanwhile, theatrical duds of “Snow White,” 2019’s “Dumbo” and 2018’s “Mary Poppins Returns” were were based on comparatively ancient texts. Seriously, the original “Dumbo” flew into theaters in 1941 during World War II and before the invention of color TV. There are exceptions; 2016’s “The Jungle Book” remake was massive (earning $967 million) despite the fact that 50 years had passed from the first film, while 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” fell short of expectations (earning $569 million), even though the original underwater musical adventure was hugely popular in the late 1980s.

“‘Lilo & Stitch’ is more proof that turn-of-the-century nostalgia is having a moment,” says Shawn Robbins, Fandango’s director of movie analytics. “Millennial and Gen Z audiences turned out in great numbers for [what is] now a budding generational classic.”

Disney recently paused a live-action reboot of 2010’s “Tangled,” which could be too soon to revisit. That being said, Disney’s next experiment is much newer IP: A “Moana” remake swims into theaters in summer 2026.

“It’s inevitable that Disney will venture into more remakes of its modern library,” Robbins adds. ‘”Lilo & Stitch’ has certainly set a strong precedent, though.”

Stitch never goes out of vogue

Stitch is apparently a brand unto itself. Over the last two decades, “Lilo & Stitch” has never waned in popularity on the shelves of toy stores. Stitch-themed stuffed animals, pajamas, sleeping bags, and Squishmallows have helped the property become one of Disney’s top 10 best-selling franchises with retail sales of over $2.6 billion in 2024 alone.

“Stitch has become a modern mascot for the brand, arguably more recognizable and familiar among today’s young families than the studio’s legacy characters,” says Robbins.

Then there’s Disney+, where viewership has grown significantly every year on the streaming service, according to studio insiders. The franchise has driven over half a billion hours of streams, with the original accounting for more than 280 hours. That’s a lot of Stitch mayhem!

Power of PG movies

Hollywood loves the adage that moviegoing begets moviegoing — and that seems to be especially true when there’s a smattering of options for youngsters. So far, studios have released nine PG-rated movies nationwide since January — up from the six that debuted during the same period in 2024. When families (an especially important, popcorn-purchasing demographic) have gone to see “A Minecraft Movie” or “Dog Man,” they’ve been treated to trailers for “Lilo & Stitch” and other upcoming kid-friendly films. It’s the best form of advertising for anyone who owns and operates a movie theater.

Healthy competition

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time that “Lilo & Stitch” faced off against Tom Cruise at the box office. In 2002, the animated “Lilo & Stitch” opened in second place behind the action star’s sci-fi blockbuster “Minority Report.” This time, “Lilo & Stitch” placed first over “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” as the eighth chapter in Cruise’s long-running spy series launched with $77 million over the four days. In post-pandemic times, Hollywood has seen that effective counterprogramming plays — think “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” or last Thanksgiving’s trio of “Wicked,” “Gladiator II” and “Moana 2” — don’t cannibalize grosses. Instead, they’ve helped to fuel bigger collective turnouts than any one-off success could achieve.

“Not a novelty nor a flash in the pan, counterprogramming works for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the baked-in marketing hook that such a matchup provides,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

In the case of “Lilo” and “Mission,” this weekend delivered the best Memorial Day weekend haul with $322 million across all films. It’s been more than a decade since this many people went to the movies over the holiday frame; the prior record was established in 2013 with $314 million, led by “Fast & Furious 6,” “The Hangover Part III” and “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

Disney regains its magic touch

The studio’s CEO Bob Iger, who seems to be hinting he may never retire, has gotten the movie studio back on track after a rocky post-pandemic run. Disney struggled in part because the company focused too much on quantity and not enough on quality. Since his return in late 2022, Iger has prioritized making better films… even if that means there are fewer of them. Movies take several years from inception to completion, so the results of those efforts are finally bearing out at the box office. “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Moana 2” and “Mufasa: The Lion King” were four of last year’s biggest releases, while “Avatar 3” and “Zootopia 2” are expected to top the box office over the next few months.

Of course, misfires are inevitable. This February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” and May’s “Thunderbolts” will struggle to turn a theatrical profit against their respective $180 million budgets. And the studio has its work cut out with this summer’s Pixar adventure “Elio,” which isn’t based on existing IP. But Disney’s misses are usually bigger than any rival studio’s average hit. Case in point, even with several underperforming titles, Disney has already become the first studio this year to cross $2 billion at the worldwide box office. There’s a reason the studio’s nickname is the Magic Kingdom.

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