‘Lilo & Stitch’ opens with record-setting $145 million

This image shows Maia Kealoha, left, and Sydney Agudong in a still from the film “Lilo & Stitch.” (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures via AP)

LOS ANGELES – Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” scored the biggest Memorial Day weekend opening of all time, hauling in $145.5  million to lap Tom Cruise’s eighth and final “Mission Impossible” film, according to industry estimates released Sunday.

The children’s science fiction comedy is a live-action remake of Disney’s 2002 “Lilo & Stitch,” which was fully animated. The franchise has also featured numerous sequels and a television show. The new film was directed by Dean Fleischer Camp and stars 7-year-old Maia Kealoha as a young girl who adopts an alien experiment she mistakes for a dog and names Stitch.

Meanwhile, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” opened with $63 million this weekend in theaters in the United States and Canada, Comscore reported. That’s the largest opening for the long-running spy franchise, which began in 1996, topping 2018’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” which opened with $61.2 million.

Together, the two films are fueling the biggest Memorial Day weekend box office in North American history, with about $325 million in tickets likely to be sold by the end of Monday’s holiday. The previous record was 2013’s $306 million, led by “Fast & Furious 6” and “The Hangover Part III.”

Third place went to last weekend’s top-grossing film, “Final Destination Bloodlines,” which grossed $19.6 million Friday through Sunday in its second weekend in theaters.

“Thunderbolts” was fourth with $9.1 million in its fourth week, followed by “Sinners,” which added another $8.7 million in its sixth week.

Rounding out the top 10 domestic releases were “The Last Rodeo” ($5.2 million), “Friendship” ($4.5 million), “A Minecraft Movie” ($2.2 million), “The Accountant 2” ($1.9 million) and “Hurry Up Tomorrow” ($740,000)

This weekend’s overall three-day box office haul was estimated at $262 million. The year-to-date total is $3.069 billion — up 21 percent from the figure at this time last year, according to Comscore. Updated figures will be provided Monday for the four-day holiday weekend. (CNS)