Lilo & Stitch Just Did the Impossible. It Took Down Mission Impossible At Box Office

News18

2 days ago

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Lilo & Stitch grossed a whopping $145.5 million domestically over the four-day weekend, whereas Mission: Impossible 8 earned only $77 million.
The Memorial Day holiday weekend proved to be a lucrative one for the box office, with two of the highly anticipated Hollywood projects battling it out for the top spot. On one hand, the eighth and final instalment of Tom Cruise 's Mission: Impossible franchise, titled The Final Reckoning, was released in theatres on May 23. It clashed with Disney's live-action remake of its 2002 movie Lilo & Stitch.
While both films broke records, it was Disney's Lilo & Stitch that ultimately stole the show, both in ticket sales and winning audiences' hearts. The family-friendly film, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, is a live-action animated remake of the 2002 film by the same name. It grossed a whopping $145.5 million domestically over the four-day weekend, according to Box Office Mojo.
Lilo & Stitch's global earnings reached $341 million, easily making it one of the highest-grossing films in the first half of 2025. The live-action animated film follows the story of a Hawaiian girl named Lilo Pelekai, played by Maia Kealoha, and her troublemaking blue koala-like alien pet named Stitch, voiced by Chris Sanders.
Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt one last time in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Although the spy action film marked a high point for the long-running franchise, the eighth MI film earned only $77 million in the four-day weekend, which is a bit more than half of the earnings of Lilo & Stitch. The film globally minted $204, which is $137 short of the Disney film's earnings. However, The Final Reckoning still set a new opening weekend record for the spy action movie franchise, which has been running since 1996.
Paramount, the production company of Mission Impossible films, rolled out an ambitious global promotional campaign for the final film of the series. It included star-studded premieres in Tokyo, Seoul, Cannes, London and New York City, with Cruise himself present to meet and greet the attendees. Moreover, the 62-year-old actor also personally greeted the moviegoers in Texas to create hype regarding the film. MI 8 is set to release in China next, offering the potential for an increase in earnings.
But it turned out that Disney's strategy paid off more in making the Lilo & Stitch a success. The Stitch brand has grown into a retail powerhouse, with the company even reporting a staggering $2.6 billion in merchandise sales in the last financial year, which is an unprecedented increase from $200 million just five years back. Moreover, the film's runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes, compared to The Final Reckoning's 2 hours and 50 minutes, has also proved to be advantageous for it, allowing for more shows per day.
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