Lilo & Sтιтch has already become an enormous hit for Disney, and while the studio is certainly no stranger to remaking their own live-action remakes, this latest film is actually the start of a new era that is certain to be followed up on in the forthcoming years. Following so many Disney live-action remakes, there was some concern about audience interest in Lilo & Stich before its release. Fortunately, Lilo & Sтιтch has found great box office success, and there is one significant detail about the new film that differentiates it from anything that came before, which may be why.

Following the disappointing box office performance of Snow White earlier this year, there has been some concern about the future of upcoming Disney live-action remakes. While a few years ago, the incredible success of films like The Lion King and Aladdin suggested that the studio could do no wrong, the recent disappointing box office for films like The Little Mermaid has made the studio uneasy about their future remakes. Fortunately, Lilo & Sтιтch sets a few new and exciting precedents for the studio moving forward.

Lilo & Sтιтch Is Disney’s First Live-Action Remake Of A Modern Animated Movie

The Response Has Been Very Positive Too

Disney’s latest effort, which adapts the 2002 animated classic Lilo & Sтιтch, is the most recent film that the studio has made yet. This became a necessity; after exhausting so many of their properties from before that, time has caught up, and only so many features remain to be remade. Besides, the 23-year gap between the original and the remake is significant enough. With good reviews for Lilo & Sтιтch and a strong box office for the film, this may set an excellent precedent for the future.

Disney’s biggest remakes have adapted films from the 90s, and that is an important factor. Children who grew up with films like The Lion King and Aladdin became adults who had a great love for the property. Having a remake release almost exactly one generation after the original film was made resulted in fervent interest in the films, with young adults and young parents alike flocking to the theaters to revisit characters and places that they loved before. Nostalgia is a strong motivator and has resulted in excellent box office grosses.

These films came from an era that was billed as the Disney Renaissance Period, running from 1989 to 1999 and including films like The Little Mermaid and Hercules. However, as time pᴀsses and people age, Disney would be best able to find continued success by appealing to the audiences that grew up later on. Lilo & Sтιтch, from the Post-Renaissance era, is already a great example of the kinds of success that these films can have. As generations age, the kids who grew up with Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet become a more viable audience.

Disney Is Continuing To Push Modern Animated Movie Remakes After Lilo & Sтιтch

Sтιтch Has A Glitch Could Be Next

Moving forward, Disney has several live-action remakes in the works that adapt newer properties. Among a slew of other films in various stages of development, some of the most discussed have surrounded the remakes of both Moana and Tangled. The latter of these has faced some concerns, with Tangled being delayed after the failure of Snow White. This might be a mistake; Tangled is a beloved, more recent property from 2010, and may be able to reach the same heights as Lilo & Sтιтch if it is produced in the next few years.

The next remake from Disney is going to be Moana, and this will be a unique test for the studio, as the original animated film is much more recent. The box office for last year’s Moana 2 was enormous, but Disney has not yet had a live-action remake while the original animated films were still being made. Moana will be just shy of ten years old by the time the live-action film releases, and it remains to be seen if films that are this recent can still be made into distinct and viable products in their live-action remakes.

Beyond this, following Lilo & Sтιтch‘s success, it is all but inevitable that a sequel to the film will go into development soon. Talk of a Lilo & Sтιтch 2 has already begun and while Disney has had a surprisingly difficult time getting most of its sequels to live-action remakes made, the pieces are all there for a successful sequel. Animated films like Lilo & Sтιтch 2: Sтιтch Has a Glitch and Leroy & Sтιтch have been very popular on Disney+ lately and may make for effective stories to explore in a sequel.

Lilo & Sтιтch Proves Disney Needs To Embrace This New Era For Live-Action Remakes

Audiences Know These Characters Better

If 2025 has taught Disney anything after the release of Snow White and Lilo & Sтιтch, it is that not all Disney classics are equal to contemporary audiences. While Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ​​​​​​was incredibly important to the studio and its history, it is now 88 years old. The film remains beloved for its importance to the medium of animation, and while it is notable that it is a better film than the live-action Snow White, much of the remake’s failure had to do with less audience interest in seeing such an old film remade.

Most of the Disney classics have now been remade by the studio, and it is actually the remakes of the more recent projects that have found the greatest success for Disney. The fervor for remakes like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast was largely due to great affection for the originals among the audience who grew up with them. While remakes of films like Bambi or Robin Hood might be fun, they are not nearly as sensible choices for the studio as live-action remakes of Frozen or The Princess and the Frog might be.

Disney’s Future Live-Action Remakes Need To Be More Like Lilo & Sтιтch

& Less Like Snow White

Rather than pulling from the entirety of the Disney archives, it is important to note that interest is far more likely for Disney films that came from the Post-Renaissance and Revival eras. Like Lilo & Sтιтch, the stories of these movies have far more modern sensibilities in style, structure, and humor. This is important, especially after the controversies surrounding Rachel Zegler’s Snow White statements, including ones she made to extratv. While the things she said about the need to update the story were true, many audiences saw this atтιтude as being disrespectful to the source material.

The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird, weird. So we didn’t do that this time.

We have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will ᴀssume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude. It’s one of those things that I think everyone’s going to have their ᴀssumptions about what it’s actually going to be, but it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really wonderful. Whether she finds love along the way is anybody’s guess until 2024.

It’s an inner journey that she goes on to find her true self and she meets a lot of people along the way that make the journey really incredible.

Zegler’s comments made sense, but the fact that some were offended by them shows that there is a danger in adapting many of these older films, which necessitate changes in order to modernize the product. Meanwhile, films like The Emperor’s New Groove, which would be among the best candidates for a remake following Lilo & Sтιтch, have much more contemporary stories and comic sensibilities. Rather than treating the entire Disney library as a potential choice for future remakes, the studio needs to take a much closer look at what they can adapt while retaining the original spirit.

Lilo & Sтιтch is already a big hit for Disney, and the future of the studio’s remakes will likely look to replicate that success. There are many different lessons to be learned from the new remake, but perhaps the most important is that Disney should not go too far back in its library to find the stories to adapt. The audience for films like Lilo & Sтιтch is now at the perfect age for the film to earn an incredible sum at the box office, and other remakes like that will likely be able to follow in its footsteps soon.

Source: extratv