Alien's cash landing

How Lilo & Stitch became one of the most profitable movies in years

- BROOKS BARNES

Call it Stitch’s vindication. For 23 years, the rowdy blue agent of chaos lived as a second-class citizen at Disney.

The animated Lilo & Stitch, released in 2002, was made in near secret, partly because the character and art style didn’t fit the Disney mould. One poster for the movie depicted classic Disney characters like Pinocchio, Jasmine, Belle recoiling from Stitch in horror.

Ticket sales were so-so. Stitch got a couple of direct-to-video sequels and a TV cartoon in the 2000s. A modest Disney World ride opened in 2004 and closed in 2018, leaving the snaggle-toothed character to scamper along as a consumer products property.

And now? Almost overnight, Stitch has become one of the biggest movie windfalls in years, not just at Disney but in all of Hollywood.

Disney's live-action Lilo & Stitch remake — made for US$100 million (3.25 billion baht) and initially planned as a straight-to-streaming release — has collected $610 million worldwide after just 10 days in cinemas. The PG movie, which cost at least $75 million to market, should sell about $950 million in tickets by the end of its run, box office analysts said on Saturday. Depending on the response to Lilo & Stitch in Japan, where it opens tomorrow, there may even be a path to $1 billion.

That means Disney, which splits tickets sales with theatres, will make $300 million or more in profit just from the box office.

The astounding turnout further validates a U-turn that Disney made in 2023, not long after Bob Iger came out of retirement to retake Disney's helm. He cut back on streaming originals and reprioritised theatrical releases. In November, Moana 2, assembled from what had been planned as a Disney+ television show, collected $1.1 billion in theatres. Lilo & Stitch was similarly rerouted.