Lilo & Stitch, Mission: Impossible rack up $633m in North American ticket sales

LOS ANGELES – The live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch and the adrenaline-fuelled Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning racked up a combined US$494.2 million (S$633 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 May 25, including US$145.5 million from North American sales.

The family-friendly movie set a North American box-office record for the first three days of the holiday weekend, besting Top Gun: Maverick (2022), according to Comscore. That helped propel ticket sales in the US and Canada to a record US$262 million, it 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, said Walt Disney Studios.

It breathes fresh life into a valuable franchise that accounted for US$2.6 billion in consumer product sales in 2024, and more than half a billion viewing hours on the Disney+ streaming service.

Hollywood actor 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 US and Canada.

That tops the opening weekend performance of the 29-year-old film series’ highest-grossing entry, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), said Mr Chris Aronson, president of domestic theatrical distribution for Paramount Pictures.

Paramount mounted a massive marketing blitz to promote the culmination of the film series, including a global promotional tour and a creator campaign, in which Cruise, 62, took part. More than 40 per cent of ticket buyers were aged 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 Mr 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 to 40 per cent of the annual North American box office. It also provides a shot in the arm for cinema 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 spin-off of the popular John Wick movies (2014 to present), starring Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas; a live-action remake of DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon (2010); and Jurassic World Rebirth, another instalment in the long-running science-fiction series.

“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 Mr Daniel Loria, senior vice-president of The BoxOffice Company, which provides online ticketing services for movie theatres.

Movie ticket sales in the US 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 cinemas and fuelled the growth of video streaming. REUTERS