We’ve known for a few years now that Disney was cooking up a live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, and it’s always been a question of how they’d handle our titular Experiment 626. Would he be CG or some hybrid between that and a puppet? Would he look good? The answer to that second question is…actually kind of yes?
Experiment 626 has entered the chat! The live-action #LiloAndStitch is coming only to theaters in Summer 2025!pic.twitter.com/2fhRGW7GC5
— Disney (@Disney) August 10, 2024
During last night’s D23 panel, Disney unveiled the first look at Stitch for the live-action remake. In CG, he definitely looks like a one-to-one translation of the character, and it also helps that he’s voiced by his original actor, Chris Sanders. Given how much of a nightmare Disney’s VFX-heavy movies can sometimes be, it’s a solid effort, and it makes you wonder about how the other CG characters like Jumbaa and Pleakley are going to look whenever we get a look at them.
If you haven’t seen the original 2005 movie, Lilo & Stitch focused on a young Hawaiian girl (played in live-action by Maia Kealoha) still reeling from the death of her parents and the possibility of being taken away from her younger sister Nami (Sydney Agudong). Lilo wishes for a friend and that manifests in the form of Stitch, a recently created alien on the run from the space police. Thinking that he’s a slightly weird dog, Lilo adopts him and the pair go on adventures. The first movie was very cute and led to a franchise with a straight-to-DVD sequel, a spinoff show with a catchy theme song, and a well-remembered web game. (And also a few appearances across Kingdom Hearts games.)
If you like what you see, good news: the Lilo & Stitch remake is officially hitting theaters sometime in summer 2025. Can’t wait to see what this version of Stitch looks like in an entire movie.
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