The marquee during the world premiere of Disney's live action remake of 'Lilo & Stitch' at the El Capitan theatre in Hollywood, California, on May 17.MICHAEL TRAN/AFP/Getty Images
The live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch and the adrenalin-fuelled Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning racked up a combined US$494.2-million in worldwide ticket sales, including US$208.5-million in the United States and Canada, setting the stage for a record-breaking Memorial Day weekend.
Lilo & Stitch, which reimagines Disney’s 2002 animated film about a mischievous blue alien who crash-lands in Hawaii and is adopted by two sisters, brought in US$304.2-million around the world through Sunday, including US$145.5-million from domestic sales.
The family-friendly movie set a domestic box-office record for the first three days of the holiday weekend, besting 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, according to comScore. That helped propel ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada to a record US$262-million, comScore reported.
Lilo & Stitch delivered one of the strongest performances for a remake of a Disney animated movie, behind the 2019 computer-animated remake of The Lion King, which brought in US$192-million, and the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast, with US$175-million in ticket sales, according to Walt Disney Studios. It breathes fresh life into a valuable franchise that accounted for US$2.6-billion in consumer product sales last year, and more than a half-billion hours of viewing on the Disney+ streaming service.
Tom Cruise’s reprisal of his role as the death-defying spy Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible rang up US$190-million in global ticket sales, including US$63-million in the U.S. and Canada. That tops the opening-weekend performance of the series’ highest-grossing film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, according to Chris Aronson, president of domestic theatrical distribution for Paramount Pictures.
Paramount mounted a massive marketing blitz to promote the culmination of the 29-year-old film series, including a global promotional tour and a creator campaign, in which Cruise took part. More than 40 per cent of ticket buyers were ages 18 to 34, a significant number for a series that has historically appealed to older viewers.
“The sheer spectacle of what Tom and McQ put in as the major ingredients of this film are truly remarkable,” said Aronson, using the nickname for the film’s director, Christopher McQuarrie.
The strong holiday weekend haul marks an encouraging start to the summer, which typically accounts for 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the annual domestic box office. It also provides a shot in the arm for theatre owners after a dismal March, when ticket sales were down 45 per cent from a year earlier.
Analysts say the Memorial Day weekend box office could be a bellwether for the summer season for the entertainment industry, with a number of potential blockbusters reaching movie theatres.
Coming releases include Ballerina, a spinoff of the popular John Wick movies starring Ana de Armas; a live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon; and another installment in the long-running science-fiction series, Jurassic World Rebirth.
“From now up until mid-August, there is at least one new release coming out every weekend with the potential of making US$100-million at the domestic box office,” said Daniel Loria, senior vice-president of The BoxOffice Company, which provides online ticketing services for movie theatres.
Movie ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada are up 21 per cent from a year ago, when the 2023 Hollywood strikes disrupted film production and truncated movie slates, according to comScore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
Still, the box office is off nearly 29 per cent from 2019, before the global pandemic shuttered movie theatres and fuelled the growth of video streaming.