Record-breaking weekend for 'Lilo & Stitch' and 'Mission: Impossible'

The live-action remake of “Lilo & Stitch” and the adrenaline-fueled “Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning” racked up a combined $494.2 million in worldwide ticket sales, including $208.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, setting the stage for a record-breaking Memorial Day weekend.

“Lilo & Stitch,” a reimagining of Disney’s 2002 animated film about a mischievous blue alien who crash-lands in Hawaii and is adopted by two sisters, brought in $304.2 million worldwide through Sunday, including $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 $262 million, Comscore reported.

According to Walt Disney Studios, "Lilo & Stitch" delivered one of the strongest performances for a Disney animated movie remake, behind the 2019 computer-animated remake of “The Lion King,” which brought in $192 million, and the 2017 version of “Beauty and the Beast,” which had $175 million in ticket sales.

It breathes fresh life into a valuable franchise that accounted for $2.6 billion in consumer product sales last year, and more than half a 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 $190 million in global ticket sales, including $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% 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 is 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% to 40% of the annual domestic box office. It also provides theater owners a shot in the arm after a dismal March, when ticket sales were down 45% 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 several potential blockbusters reaching movie theaters.

Coming releases include “Ballerina,” a spin-off 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 $100 million at the domestic box office,” said Daniel Loria, senior vice president of The BoxOffice Company, which provides online ticketing services for movie theaters.

Movie ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada are up 21% 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 has been off nearly 29% since 2019, before the global pandemic shuttered movie theaters and fueled the growth of video streaming.