As with Thanksgiving weekend last year, our number one movie is breaking massive records, originally a Disney+ streaming release, and set in Hawaii. Huh.

That’s right, Lilo & Stitch is making waves in a big way, with an estimated $145 million three-day (well, let’s be real, four-day) opening. As far as the the full holiday weekend goes, The Hollywood Reporter is giving it a bombastic $183 million (that number apparently does not come from Disney, so take that however you will). In other words, we have a new Memorial Day champion, taking the mantle, ironically, from Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick. That’s right. Stitch is showing no mercy to Mr. Cruise this weekend. Stitch still hasn’t stopped making couch jokes in 2025.

In other words, Disney was really being premature when they stopped production on the live-action Tangled after Snow White flopped. One bad apple shouldn’t be enough to stop a genre which, like it or not, is more or less a consistent money-maker for them, so it was a baffling decision on their part and one which they will hopefully remedy. The “bad news” in Lilo & Stitch’s case is that it’s a small scale release dolled up in summer blockbuster clothing. This wasn’t intended for theaters when it was being filmed, and I pray the takeaway from this isn’t “we should make films with streaming budgets and send them to theaters.” Because they can only pull this off so many times before audiences grow wise.

That being said, Stitch was a guaranteed hit once trailers revealed just how adorable the CGI titular alien was. Seriously, he’s so cute, and kudos to the production team for not inadvertently making him into fluffy nightmare fuel. And for the most part I’m hearing the film is a solid enough retelling of the animated classic, at least until the last third, where it makes two major changes that have fans up in arms and not at all reluctant to post spoilers. Next up for Disney’s live-action remake craze is Moana for summer 2026.

Now, under any other circumstances, our big story of the weekend would be Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning, supposedly the final film in the franchise, but you know, never underestimate Tom Cruise’s desire to cheat death. Three-day take (well, again, really four-day) is currently at $63 million, which would be a best for the series. The only bad news is that The Final Reckoning’s budget ballooned to a reported $400 million, but that was due to dealing with COVID and two strikes while filming, so this isn’t a The Marvels situation where no one has any idea where all the money went. Ultimately, this is a series that does its heavy hitting worldwide, so fingers crossed audiences are plane crazy for this one in the weeks to come.

Elsewhere, The Last Rodeo from Angel Studios opened. The plot involves a former rodeo star returning to arena to win a big cash prize to pay for his grandson’s critical operation, and really, the moral of the story should be that no one should be in a position where they have to do that, as health care should be affordable to all. But I digress. Like most Angel Studios releases, this one looked “fine,” and the box office is to match with $5 million in the bank against what I’m sure must be a very modest price tag.

Anyway, the top ten, via The Numbers (Deadline doesn’t have their full chart up yet)…