“Lilo,” “Mission” Target Big Memorial Day Starts

Short-range tracking figures are in for this year’s Memorial Day weekend holiday and it looks as though a combination of Disney and Tom Cruise could power the four-day break to massive numbers.

Deadline reports that the “Lilo & Stitch” remake is targeting a $120 million start over the Friday-Monday, while “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is on track for an $80 million start over the same period. The result is the two films are eyeing $200 million combined.

Combined with all the other films in the marketplace, the overall Memorial Day box-office may not reach the record highs of $314 million which it did in 2013, but it’s not going to be too far off.

Note, that the highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend ever remains 2013, when Fast & Furious 6 and The Hangover 3 drove a $314M frame. Paramount’s Tom Cruise sequel Top Gun: Maverick — the top-grossing pic of the actor’s nearly 45-year career — owns the best opening over Memorial Day weekend with $160M; that 2022 holiday frame counted $223.3M for all titles, according to Box Office Mojo.

The new “Lilo & Stitch” currently has an unaided awareness that’s higher than “A Minecraft Movie” with families, teens and young women of Hispanic and Latina origins tracking particularly well. It’s outpacing 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” live-action remake whcih made $118.8 million in its debut.

The new “Mission” is scoring higher unaided awareness, interest and first choice than prior entry “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning”. That film scored $76 million over five days.

One big advantage this time out is that ‘Final Reckoning’ will have IMAX screens for three weeks, the title not having to give them up like the prior film did after just one week due to the Barbenheimer phenomenon.

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