After a tricky road to get off the ground, the Lilo & Sтιтch trailer has hit a major milestone that could prove beneficial for its box office run. The upcoming movie serves as a live-action remake of the beloved 2002 movie of the same name, centering on a young Native Hawaiian girl who unknowingly adopts an alien experiment on the run, though forms a life-changing bond with him. Hailing from Oscar nominee Dean Fleischer Camp and led by Maia Kealoha and Sydney Agudong, Disney shifted its Lilo & Sтιтch live-action remake from a streaming-only to a theatrical premiere, which is coming in May 2025.

With just over two months remaining until its release, the official Lilo & Sтιтch trailer unveiled the first full look at the live-action remake, and garnered a generally favorable response from fans. It didn’t stop there, as Disney has revealed that it’s now their second-most-viewed live-action trailer of all-time with 158 million views within 24 hours of its debut. This puts it just behind 2019’s The Lion King teaser trailer, which garnered 224.6 million views in that same window.

What This Trailer Milestone Means For Lilo & Sтιтch

The Live-Action Remake Might Be On Its Way To A Major Payday

While a trailer’s viewership could be just as much about an audience’s distaste for what they’re seeing as their enjoyment of it, the early response to the live-action trailer has leaned far more on the positive side of things. Fans of the original Lilo & Sтιтch have expressed their admiration for everything from Chris Sanders returning to voice the тιтular alien to not going the way of a pH๏τorealistic version of Sтιтch, as Disney has often done with their live-action remakes since 2019’s Lion King.

Between this positive reception to the trailer and the viewership milestone, Lilo & Sтιтch might actually find itself avoiding becoming something of a box office hit. The movie does still have a pretty congested roster to compete with in May, including Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Karate Kid: Legends and fellow Disney release Thunderbolts*, though without much other family-driven fare that month, it could carve out a nice haul for itself. Check out May 2025’s major theatrical release calendar below:

Beyond just possibly becoming a hit, Lilo & Sтιтch could also turn around Disney’s live-action struggles at the box office. Though it will have a difficult time replicating the $1.66 billion success of The Lion King, whose trailer the 2025 film sits behind on Disney’s all-time charts, this early positive groundswell for the next remake could find itself avoiding the same underwhelming domestic performances of The Little Mermaid and projections of the upcoming Snow White and be a well-rounded hit for the studio.

Our Take On Lilo & Sтιтch’s Trailer Milestone

Fans Of The Original Are Cautiously Hopeful About The New Version

As someone who grew up loving the original film, I certainly can’t deny that I’d held some fears about the Lilo & Sтιтch remake, particularly after the last few live-action Disney updates failed to necessarily offer any kind of meaningful new takes on their originals. That being said, I certainly was more than one of the 158 million views contributing to the trailer’s major milestone, as I am always curious to see how a filmmaker seeks to bring an acclaimed property back to life, particularly after Camp’s own success with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

Beyond my own curiosity, though, it is pretty clear that a large part of what helped Lilo & Sтιтch garner such a high number of views so quickly is the continued pᴀssionate love audiences have for the original, and desire to see whether Camp was approaching the source material the right way. Between the early reception and high viewership already, as long as the actual reviews bring the same level of positivity, I could certainly see this being one of Disney’s best live-action remakes yet.

Source: Disney