(AP) – ‘Lilo & Stich’ teamed up with Tom Cruise to lead the North American box office over Memorial Day weekend, signaling a strong start to the summer movie season.
Disney’s live-action take on ‘Lilo & Stich’ pulled in an astonishing $145.5 million at North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday, marking the year’s second-largest domestic opening after ‘A Minecraft Movie’.
The film remains a faithful live-action remake of the 2002 original about a six-legged alien and a Hawaiian girl who has built a devoted following in the decades since. It was only eclipsed by the $185 million debut of ‘The Lion King’ in 2019 and exceeded all forecasts, impressing box office watchers.
‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ from Paramount Pictures, the eighth and (likely) final outing of Cruise as Ethan Hunt in a career spanning nearly three decades, finished a distant second, but still notched a franchise record with $63 million through Sunday, surpassing ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’, which opened with $61 million in 2018.
Cruise has long been an indefatigable promoter of his films worldwide and a leading advocate for the industry going to the cinema. Like its predecessor in the series, this film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.
This weekend vastly outpaced last year, when Memorial Day box office brought in only $132 million from Friday through Monday.
Next, the estimated Friday-to-Sunday ticket sales at cinemas in the United States and Canada, per 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
