'Lilo & Stich' teams with Tom Cruise and 'Mission Impossible' for a monster Memorial Day weekend

“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. But the duo was no little brother and sister to the better-known figures in Disney’s parade of live-action remakes. It was second only to the $185 million opening of “The Lion King” in 2019 and outshot all projections, wowing box office observers.

“This overperformed by a huge margin,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.

“Lilo & Stich” surpassed Cruise’s 2022 “Top Gun: Maverick” as the biggest domestic Memorial Day weekend earner ever, and global estimates put it past $300 million.

Paramount Pictures’ “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” the eighth and (probably) last appearance of Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a nearly three-decade run, was a distant second, but still brought in a franchise record $63 million through Sunday, outearning “Mission: Impossible - Fallout,” which opened domestically to $61 million in 2018.

And the spy thriller with Cruise’s frequent partner Christopher McQuarrie in the director’s chair for the fourth time in the franchise was the top global earner with $127 million.

Cruise has been a relentless global promoter of his movies, and he’s been the industry’s loudest cheerleader for going to theaters. This film, like its predecessor in the series, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

“The spectacle of what Tom and McQ put on the screen, it screams theatrical,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “The product they put out just screams, ‘This has to be in theaters.’”

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.

This weekend as a whole blasted past last year, when the Memorial Day box office saw just $132 million for all films in the Friday-through-Monday span. And it appears that it will top 2013 as the best Memorial Day the industry has had, with an estimated overall total of $325 million.

Critics were wearying of Disney’s live action and CGI remakes of its animated classics. Mark Kennedy of The Associated Press called this “Lilo & Stich” “utterly unnecessary.” There were signs audiences were agreeing. “Snow White” opened to a sleepy $43 million in March, and several similar releases were tepid.

But this film tapped into a latent love for oddball pairing.

It also furthered a trend that includes “A Minecraft Movie” of PG-rated films outpacing the PG-13 movies that usually dominate, made all the more impressive by the lower kids’ ticket prices the more family-oriented films bring.

Dergarabedian credits a strong lead-up of films that have put people in theaters and remain the box office top 10, including “Minecraft,” “Sinners,” “Thunderbolts” and “Final Destination: Bloodlines.”

“I can’t think of a better lineup of films to ignite leading up to Memorial weekend to ignite the spark that got us this record-breaking holiday frame,” he said.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Lilo & Stich,” $145.5 million.

2. “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” $63 million.

3. “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” $19.7 million.

4. “Thunderbolts,” $9.2 million.

5. “Sinners,” $8.8 million.

6. “The Last Rodeo,” $5.3 million.

7. “Friendship,” $4.6 million.

8. “A Minecraft Movie,” $2.2 million.

9. “The Accountant 2,” $2 million.

10. “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” $740,000.