“Lilo & Stich” teamed with Tom Cruise for a monster Memorial Day box office weekend.
Disney's live action version of “Lilo & Stich” earned a staggering $145.5 million in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday, the second biggest domestic opening of the year after “A Minecraft Movie.”
The movie is a faithful remake of the 2002 original's story of a six-legged alien and a Hawaiian girl that has created a big cult following in the decades since.
Paramount Pictures' “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” the eighth and (probably) last appearance of Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a nearly three-decade run, was a distant second domestically, but still brought in a franchise record $63 million through Sunday, out-earning “Mission Impossible: Fallout,” which opened domestically to $61 million in 2018.
And the spy thriller with Christopher McQuarrie directing for the first time in the franchise was the top global earner with $127 million," with “Lilo & Stich” bringing in $111 million.
The previous film, 2023’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” launched with a franchise-best $80 million over five days in a July opening, though it came in shy of industry expectations with a $56.2 million haul over a three-day weekend.
Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
