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It’s the nostalgia clash that no-one saw coming, as Disney’s Lilo & Stitch takes on Tom Cruise not once, but twice this weekend, as the new live-action (and CGI) remake of the animated classic looks set to open in theaters across the US with a record-breaking box office take that won’t just make more money than Cruise’s contemporaneous Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, but also the current record holder for most successful Memorial Day opening weekend… Cruise’s 2022 hit, Top Gun: Maverick.

According to current tracking, Lilo & Stitch is set to make somewhere in the region of $165 million in its opening weekend, thanks to an audience made up not only of current families, but also millennial and Gen Z women who grew up with the 2002 animated original and are scoring highly when polled about interest in the movie. (Don’t worry; millennial men are also scoring surprisingly highly for the movie, as well.)

If the movie hits expectations, it’ll not only outperform Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning’s anticipated box office, which is forecast to make somewhere in the region of $75 million to $85 million — a franchise best, and likely a welcome note for the series to end on after 2022’s Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One underperformed with ‘just’ $54.7 million — but also Top Gun: Maverick’s current Memorial Day record of $160 million.

The chance to beat Tom Cruise not once but twice at the same time is quite something, and almost enough to make one root for Lilo & Stitch despite the poor reviews for the movie. What will be interesting to see if whether or not the success of the movie will be enough to jump start Disney’s live-action remakes of animated favorites, which had reportedly been on pause since the underperformance of this year’s earlier Snow White remake.

Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning both open May 23. Whichever ticket you buy is a sign of which side you’re on in the upcoming Tom Cruise wars. 

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