Elvis & Lilo & Stitch: 'Everyone's Favorite Elvis-Loving Alien' pulls up to Graceland

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2 days ago

Elvis and Ann-Margret. Elvis and Nancy Sinatra.
Those teams were popular with audiences. But not as popular as Elvis & Lilo & Stitch.
Released in 2002, the Disney animated feature film "Lilo & Stitch" introduced audiences to a lonely young Hawaiian girl and Elvis fan, named Lilo, and her new "pet," Stitch, a somewhat dog-esque genetically engineered extraterrestrial who liked to rampage but really yearned for a hug. Together, the duo pursued 'ohana (a Hawaiian term for "family") while playing "Suspicious Minds" on a portable record player and battling space aliens.
Like Stitch's stolen spaceship when it crash-landed on the island of Kauaʻi, the movie made an impact. It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature (it lost to Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," as any movie would), and collected $273 million at the international box office. (In comparison, 1964's "Viva Las Vegas," with Elvis and Ann-Margret, earned the equivalent of $94 million, in 2025 dollars.)
On May 23, Disney released a new "Lilo & Stitch," the latest in its series of more-or-less live-action remakes of beloved animated features (other examples — all with digitally animated characters — include "Beauty and the Beast," "Mulan" and "Snow White," to name a few). Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp (who charmed audiences with the low-budget "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"), the movie preserves but de-emphasizes its predecessor's Elvis connection.
Even so, in the actual live-action world — the world of Disney and Graceland, of marketing and merchandise, of fans of music and movies — Elvis & Lilo & Stitch remain inseparable.
"The amazing thing is that each generation gets introduced to Elvis in a different way, and for a certain generation, 'Lilo & Stitch' was how they were introduced to Elvis," said Angie Marchese, vice president of archives and exhibits at Graceland.
"Now in their mid-20s, these people became fans because of the Disney movie," she said. "And now there's a whole new generation of kids who will be introduced to Elvis and his music through this new live-action version."
How many kids? A lot of 'em: The new "Lilo" immediately established itself as a blockbuster. According to Variety, the entertainment industry newspaper, the movie set a Memorial Day weekend record by collecting an estimated $183 million at the U.S. box office. With the addition of its overseas revenues, Variety added, "Lilo & Stich" is off to "a staggering $341.7 million global start."
On May 22, the evening before the movie's official release date, Disney hosted an invitation-only screening of the new movie in the 464-seat theater at The Guest House at Graceland, the hotel on Elvis Presley Boulevard that is located just north of the Elvis mansion. Attendees — mostly Elvis fans already connected to Graceland via various mailing lists — packed the house. They snagged free "Lilo & Stitch" posters and leis, and posed for selfies against Hawaiian backdrops and alongside larger-than-life Stitch figures, dressed in Elvis garb (there was a "Blue Hawaii Stitch," a "Jailhouse Rock Stitch," and a "50000000 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong Gold Lamé Suit" Stitch).
Earlier in the day, an animatronic Stitch in a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit toured Graceland in a miniature motorized vehicle, to the surprise and likely delight of fans. "The lovable renegade alien, who happens to love the music of Elvis Presley, arrived at the gates to Graceland Mansion in a pink convertible before going across the street to view the King of Rock 'n' Roll's jumpsuits and pink Cadillac at Elvis Presley's Memphis entertainment complex," stated a Disney press release about the publicity event. The headline described Stitch as "Everyone's Favorite Elvis-Loving Alien."
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The ballyhoo echoed similar fanfare that heralded the release of the first "Lilo & Stitch" 23 years earlier.
In 2002, the movie's arrival coincided with Graceland's yearlong commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death; Jack Soden, CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises, told The Commercial Appeal that the release of an Elvis-connected "classic G-rated Disney flick" would open "a powerful market" for Graceland.
In 2002 as in 2025, Disney and Graceland hosted an invitation-only local premiere for "Lilo & Stitch," but the earlier event was more elaborate. The screening of the film at Downtown's now-vanished multiplex, the Muvico Peabody Place 22, was followed by what The Commercial Appeal called a "lavish luau" in front of the ticket pavilion at Graceland, complete with fire dancers, leis made from actual orchids, bamboo huts and costumed movie characters. Testifying to the event's importance, the guest of honor was the nephew of Walt Disney, longtime Disney executive Roy E. Disney, who at the time was vice chairman of the Disney company and chair of Disney Feature Animation. (Roy Disney died in 2009, at 79.)
The Los Angeles premiere of the 2002 movie had occurred about a week earlier. Priscilla Presley attended, and told reporters that "Lilo & Stitch" offered "a great message to bring family back together again because really, that's what it's all about. Elvis was very much a family man, regardless of what you hear. He loved family and he always came home."
In 2025 as in 2002, Disney and Elvis Presley Enterprises are banking on the appeal of "Lilo & Stitch." The gift shops at Graceland now are stuffed with items from the grandiloquently labeled "Disney Stitch Inspired by Elvis Collection," created by NECA, a pop culture collectibles company. Ranging from $12.99 to $34.99, these include plush and plastic figures of all sizes, showcasing Stitch in Elvis garb. Stitch-as-Elvis pins and other items also are available.
The new merchandise augments a still thriving line of "Lilo & Stitch" merchandise, tied to the original film. Stitch "has become a crucial character in the Walt Disney Company's modern empire, mainly in the form of a dizzying array of licensed merchandise," The New York Times reported this week, in a story that called Stitch "a cash cow for the company."
Reported the newspaper: "The company's annual financial reports for 2023 and 2024 included 'Lilo & Stitch' on a short list of nine examples of its 'major' licensed properties, putting it on par with classics titans like Winnie the Pooh and Mickey and Friends, and conglomerates like Star Wars and the collective Disney princesses."
Meanwhile, vintage 2002 "Lilo & Stitch" collectibles continue to be popular on eBay and elsewhere; these include eight McDonald's Happy Meal toys, one of which presents Stitch in an Elvis jumpsuit, strumming a guitar atop a surfboard.
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The new "Lilo & Stitch," for the most part, is remarkably faithful to its inspiration, even to the inclusion of a clip from the same B-movie, 1958's "Earth vs. The Spider." But — somewhat surprisingly, in the wake of the hit Baz Luhrmann biopic — the new movie has less Elvis than the old.
Yes, the soundtrack showcases the same songs ("Heartbreak Hotel," "Devil in Disguise," "Hound Dog"), in basically the same situations (although the remake totally bungles the Stitch-as-record-player "Suspicious Minds" scene); but the live-action Lilo (played by Maia Kealoha) is less the Elvis evangelist than was her cartoon counterpart.
In the first film, Lilo pays Stitch the ultimate compliment: "You look like an Elvis fan." She pulls out an 8-by-10 "Blue Hawaii" portrait of Elvis and declares: "Elvis was a model citizen." She tells Stitch: "I have compiled a list of his traits for you to practice." This leads to comic scenes of Stitch strumming a guitar while wearing an Elvis-style jumpsuit and pompadour. The film ends with a happily-ever-after vacation "photo" of Stitch and his new human family posing in front of the gates of Graceland. None of these Elvis moments are recreated in the new movie — although Stitch does appear, briefly, in his Elvis jumpsuit during the end credits.
Maybe we'll get more Elvis — for better or worse? — in the sequel, if there is one.
The 2002 "Lilo & Stitch" was followed by a TV series and three direct-to-video feature films. The first of these features was "Stitch! The Movie," which — perhaps due to budgetary constraints — licensed only one Elvis song, the thematically appropriate but hardly epochal "Slicin' Sand," from 1963's "Blue Hawaii." The lyrics likely did not give Leiber & Stoller sleepless nights. Encourages Elvis, while serenading a bevy of beauties: "Dance, dance, dance/ 'til your toes get tan/ We're gonna have us a ball on the beach/ Slicin' sand..."
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Lilo & Stitch: Elvis references, Stitch merch and a visit to Graceland