Lilo & Sтιтch’s Box Office Smackdown Of Tom Cruise Is Actually Sweet, Sweet Revenge

Lilo & Sтιтch‘s box office allows the movie to exact long-gestating revenge against Tom Cruise. The 2025 Disney release is a live-action remake of the iconic 2002 animated movie of the same name. It follows Lilo Pelekai (Maia Kealoha), an ostracized young girl who is being raised by her older sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong) and whose life changes when she befriends Sтιтch (Chris Sanders), an alien genetic experiment who escapes captivity and wreaks havoc wherever he goes. The movie was directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, who made his narrative feature debut with 2023’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

The Lilo & Sтιтch release kicked off over Memorial Day weekend. As of Sunday morning, it was projected to earn a 4-day holiday weekend total of $183 million at the domestic box office. This is significantly more than the projected 4-day domestic total of its new release compeтιтor, which is the Tom Cruise movie Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which is the eighth installment in the iconic action franchise. While The Final Reckoning is set to break an opening weekend record for the franchise, its projected $77 million haul is less than half of that of the Disney live-action remake.

Lilo & Sтιтch’s Live-Action Remake Flips The Script On Tom Cruise

The Original Movie Debuted Opposite Minority Report

Sтιтch stomping around sand castles on the beach in Lilo & Sтιтch 2025

Image by Yailin Chacon

While the box office success of 2025’s Lilo & Sтιтch is remarkable in its own right, Memorial Day weekend is actually not the only time that Sтιтch has squared off against Tom Cruise. The original Disney movie debuted on June 21, 2002, on the same weekend as the Steven Spielberg movie Minority Report, which was based on the 1956 Philip K. Dick novella of the same name and starred Tom Cruise as Precrime commanding officer John Anderton, a man who must try and figure out why he is being accused of a murder that will be committed in the future.

Minority Report was Steven Spielberg’s next movie after 1998’s Saving Private Ryan and 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Both movies were neck-and-neck in 2002, but Minority Report pulled ahead by a hair, taking No. 1 at the domestic box office with a 3-day debut of $35.67 million. While Lilo & Sтιтch maintained a position at No. 2 (ahead of holdover тιтles such as Scooby-Doo, The Bourne Idenтιтy, and Spider-Man), it fell behind with a debut gross of $35.26 million. After slipping beneath Minority Report by just $0.41 million, Sтιтch never managed to take No. 1 during any of its domestic weekends throughout its entire run, making the new movie’s victory against Tom Cruise that much sweeter.

Lilo & Sтιтch Conquered Two Tom Cruise Movies At Once

It Broke A Memorial Day Weekend Record

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt looking puzzled in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Image via Paramount Pictures

Not only has Lilo & Sтιтch conquered Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning during its opening weekend, it is projected to compound its revenge by conquering a second Tom Cruise movie at the same time. With both its $183 million 4-day gross and its $145.5 million 3-day gross, the Disney movie is set to earn the best Memorial Day opening weekend of all time, usurping the $160.5 million 4-day and $126 million 3-day domestic debut of 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, a smash hit legacy sequel that also starred Tom Cruise.

Lilo & Sтιтch & Tom Cruise’s Battle Is Not Over

There Is One Category Where Mission: Impossible Could Succeed

Not only has the Lilo & Sтιтch box office well and truly gotten revenge upon Minority Report, it is currently tracking to make over $1 billion worldwide, which would more than double, and probably eventually triple, the entire worldwide box office take of the 2002 Tom Cruise movie, which grossed $358.4 million in global theaters by the end of its run.

However, there is still one way that Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning could beat the live-action Lilo & Sтιтch. While Minority Report and the original 2002 Disney movie were nominated for one Oscar apiece (for Best Sound Editing and Best Animated Feature respectively), The Final Reckoning could pull ahead of the remake at the 2026 Academy Awards. While 2023’s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning was nominated for two Oscars, no Disney live-action remakes have gotten Oscar nominations since 2021’s Cruella (which won for Best Costume Design), so if precedent holds, The Final Reckoning could ultimately get more nods from the Academy.

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