Disney is not done with creating live-action ‘reimaginings‘ of their animated features – and the announcement of Lilo & Stitch only confirms this.
The tale of a young Hawaiian girl befriending an extraterrestrial will be produced by Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich. Lin and Eirich are also the same guys working on the live-action Aladdin for Disney, due for release May 2019. If anything, this shows that Disney has a lot of faith in their abilities. Can they produce magic for both the iconic street rat and Lilo & Stitch?
Joining them to write the script is Mike Van Waes. Waes is an up-and-coming writer in the Hollywood biz, but he has a couple of projects under his belt. The one that sticks out the most is his children’s book, Peeves, released this year. Published by HarperCollins, it is a picture book about worries materializing as anthropomorphic creatures.
Also notably, he has written The Crooked Man script, an announced spin-off of The Conjuring franchise.
Co-producing the feature is Rideback’s, Ryan Halprin.
The movie is set to be a combination of live-action and CGI. This is perhaps not surprising given the extraterrestrial characters in the original film. It will be interesting to see how Stitch is handled in this film, given recent improvements in movie CGI.
The original Lilo & Stitch was released in 2002 to positive critical reception. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the movie received 86% “Certified Fresh” rating. The consensus states, “Edgier than traditional Disney fare, Lilo and Stitch explores issues of the family while providing a fun and charming story.”
Commercially, Lilo & Stitch produced $273.1 million globally. Bx Office Mojo estimates that it sold over 25 million tickets during its run.
The success of the film spawned a number of sequels including Stitch! The Movie and Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. A number of animated series’ have also been produced including an American series, a Japanese anime, and a Chinese series.
What are your thoughts on a live-action Lilo & Stitch? We’d love to hear you out in the comments!