Impossible, Lilo & Stitch Make Big Memorial Day Money

We’ve got two major Hollywood movies this holiday weekend, Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch, and they’re both killing it in theaters.

Per Variety, the two films have made for the “largest Memorial Day holiday in history.” At $341.7 million worldwide, Lilo has blown well past initial projections and its current domestic take of $145.5 million has replaced Top Gun: Maverick (which earned $160 million through all four days in 2022) as Memorial Day’s best opening weekend.  Domestically, it’s the second-best holiday weekend start behind Black Panther’s $242 million during Presidents Day 2018. Lilo is one of the biggest debuts for Disney’s live-action remakes, just behind 2019’s The Lion King and 2017’s Beauty & the Beast, which respectively grossed $191 million and $174 million, but it’s likely to earn $183 million by the end of the four-day weekend.

Meanwhile, Final Reckoning opened to $190 million worldwide. It released a week prior in Australia, South Korea, and other territories, so its international audience made up $127 million’s worth of that haul. By weekend’s end, its $63 million domestic take may jump up to $77 million, a new record for the Mission: Impossible series. Both films have received strong critical and audience reception, helped by growing momentum ahead of their releases. Nostalgia drives both movies: Lilo is based on Disney’s 23-year-old classic, and Reckoning may be the last film in the series, or just the last to star Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt.

Regardless, audiences are going out in droves to see movies this weekend, including holdovers like Final Destination Bloodlines, Sinners, and Thunderbolts. Variety noted it’s been over a decade since people went to the theaters this much during Memorial Day, and a marked improvement from 2024’s weaker showing of Furiosa and Garfield. And the summer season continues with Ballerina, How to Train Your Dragon, and 28 Years Later in June, followed by Superman and Fantastic Four in July.

Let us know what you thought of Mission: Impossible and Lilo & Stitch in the comments below.

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