Anyone who has watched my Instagram lives in the past, I have said Jon M. Chu left Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch. Well today, the news has been confirmed.
According to Deadline, Dean Fleischer-Camp director on the critical hit film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On has signed on to direct the long in development project. Chris Kekaniokalani Bright is in negotiations to write the script. No word yet on if this will be theatrically or Disney+. We previously heard that it would go to the Disney streamer.
The remake is said to follow the same story as the animated film that followed a young girl’s close encounter with the galaxy’s most wanted extraterrestrial. Lilo is a lonely Hawaiian girl who adopts a small ugly “dog,” whom she names Stitch. Stitch would be the perfect pet if he weren’t, in reality, a genetic experiment who has escaped from an alien planet and crash-landed on Earth. Through her love, faith and unwavering belief in ohana, the Hawaiian concept of family, Lilo helps unlock Stitch’s heart and gives him the ability to care for someone else.
Attached to produce are Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich of Rideback, who are coming off last year’s billion-dollar hit remake of Aladdin and are also producing the Disney+ Inspector Gadget film, as well as the Haunted Mansion reboot. Studio execs Zoe Kent (Sade) and Louie Provost (Togo) will oversee the production.
Released in the Summer of 2002, Walt Disney Animations’ Lilo & Stitch grossed a whopping $273 million at the worldwide box office on an $80 million. The film would go on to spawn multiple straight to DVD sequels, which ultimately led to a Disney Channel original series that ran for two seasons from 2003-2006.
