What we know about Disney's Lilo & Stitch remake as first look arrives

Forget pens, pencils and pixels — Disney has found recent success with a string of live-action remakes and their latest, a retelling of 2002's alien tale Lilo & Stitch, aims to be out of this world.

Following in the wake of 1990’s animated hits Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, original movie directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois set their sights on Hawaii where we meet a young island girl named Lilo Pelekai who befriends a wild blue animal known as ‘extraterrestrial creature Experiment 626’ who she playfully renames Stitch.

This touching adventure was Walt Disney Feature Animation’s 42nd release and one of the studio’s few hand-drawn successes of the studio’s post-animation renaissance of the early 2000s. However, while not a huge hit by Disney’s regular standards, Lilo & Stitch has developed a strong cult status among fans in the years following.

Read more: All the Disney live-action remakes in development

Cut to today and Disney has found box office gold by reimagining their nostalgic favourites with the latest CGI technology and storytelling. A Lilo & Stitch live-action remake is next up to bat but who’s directing, who’s already cast and what do we know about it so far? Let’s take a look.

When will Lilo & Stitch be released?

Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch remake will invade cinemas on 23 May, 2025, and will later be streaming on Disney+.

News of a remake first broke back in 2018, with The Hollywood Reporter revealing that Disney had hired a relatively new writer named Mike Van Waes to pen a script. The same story also let us know that the film will be produced by Jonathan Eirich and Dan Lin, the same duo that helped bring 2019’s live-action Aladdin to screens.

Later in 2020, it was reported that Wicked director Jon M. Chu was circling the project with an eye to direct before it was ultimately revealed that Dean Fleischer Camp, director of the charming and Oscar-nominated Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, would helm the film.

What happens in Lilo & Stitch?

While the official log-line for this Disney reboot simply cites its storyline as being a “live-action remake of Disney’s animated classic Lilo and Stitch,” if previous live-action Disney retoolings are anything to go by, we can probably assume that this new take will stick fairly closely to the original.

We got our first look at a digitised Stitch during Disney’s D23 showcase in August 2024. Check it out below:

Another look at Stitch was released at D23 in Brazil in November 2024. It shows the rambunctious extra-terrestrial on a bed, presumably in Lilo's bedroom, wearing a traditional Hawaiian Lei around its neck.

If you need a refresher, 2002’s Lilo & Stitch followed a young Hawaiian girl named Lilo who, while still recovering from the death of her parents, meets a boisterous blue alien who she names Stitch, telling people it’s her new dog.

Together, the pair form a strong bond that echoes elements of ‘Ohana,’ a Hawaiian term meaning ‘family,’ all while avoiding the authorities on Stitch’s tail. It’s currently unclear whether the film’s live-action twin will deviate any further from the plot of its predecessor.

Who is in the Lilo & Stitch cast?

Original Stitch voice actor Chris Sanders will return to the role he first created in 2002, while newcomer Maia Kealoha will play Lilo.

The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis is set to play Pleakley, an alien tasked with recapturing Stitch, while No Time To Die’s Billy Magnusson has been cast in an as-yet-undisclosed role.

Sydney Agudong has joined the cast as Lilo’s older sister Nani, who was voiced by Wayne’s World star Tia Carrere in the first film. Courtney B. Vance will play Cobra Bubbles, one of the film’s authority figures and a social worker whose visit to Lilo’s guardian Nani is interrupted by Stitch’s chaos.

Lilo & Stitch will be released 23 May 2025