It’s a good day at the box office, with Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning racking up ticket sales over the Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. The two blockbusters drove the biggest opener in the holiday’s history, earning US$183 million and US$63 million in the domestic market, respectively.
On the international stage, the numbers add up to US$341 million and US$190 million, scoring the second-largest worldwide opening weekend of the year behind A Minecraft Movie, which brought in US$313 million over three days. Disney’s latest adaptation also ranks as the third-highest start among its other live-action counterparts, following 2019’s The Lion King and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast.
As for the long-running Tom Cruise-led series, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning now holds the record for the best opening in franchise history. This isn’t the first time he has gone up against the animated classic: in June 2002, Minority Report narrowly beat out the original animated Lilo & Stitch when they opened opposite each other.
Alongside Cruise, who reprises his role as Ethan Hunt, the eighth instalment also stars Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy), Greg Tarzan Davis (Top Gun: Maverick), and Esai Morales (Bad Boys). It picks up after last year’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, reuniting Cruise’s Ethan Hunt with his crew, as he continues his mission to stop Gabriel Martinelli (Morales), a ghost from his past, from obtaining the AI programme known as “the Entity”.
Lilo & Stitch marks the film debut of Maia Kealoha as protagonist Lilo, with original writer-director Chris Sanders reprising his voice role as Stitch. It features some elements from the original animated classic, and chronicles the story of “the bond formed between a lonely human girl named Lilo and a dog-like alien named Stitch, who is engineered to be a force of destruction. Pursuing aliens, social workers and the idea of the bond of family figure into the proceedings.”
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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