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With $610.8 million in total ticket sales, Lilo & Stitch has now outperformed Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which made $491.7 million, and The Little Mermaid (2023), which made $569.6 million. It’s still far behind Disney’s most-profitable live-action remakes, such as The Lion King (2019), which earned over $1.6 billion. Still, it’s notable that Lilo & Stitch is catching up to the movies with the best average ratings among critics and viewers.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the new Lilo & Stitch has the ninth-highest Tomatometer score of any Disney Live-action remake, at 70% Fresh. By comparison, the Cinderella remake is Certified Fresh with an 84% positive Tomatometer score. It’s worth knowing that this aggregator takes the average of the scores it receives. The site accounted for 182 reviews of Lilo & Stitch, but 256 reviews of Cinderella. The fact that its score is higher with more reviews is all the more impressive.
[RELATED: Lilo & Stitch’s Most Controversial Change Ruined The Original’s Best Jokes]
Interestingly, the average user-submitted scores on the Popcornmeter are almost inverse of this dynamic. At the time of this writing, 85% of user-submitted reviews of Lilo & Stitch are positive, while Cinderella only scored a 78%. This number is more likely to change over time than the Tomatometer score, and it seems safe to assume that Lilo & Stitch will see a drop in popularity in the coming years.
In general, Disney’s live-action remakes suffer from comparisons to their classic animated counterparts, and Lilo & Stitch is no different — despite the fact that the 2002 original is currently the most recent movie Disney has remade. Critics praised Cinderella for being faithful to the original in its time, while Lilo & Stitch is already catching some heat for major changes to the story and characters.
Those that want to compare for themselves can see Lilo & Stitch (2025) in theaters now. The original is streaming now on Disney+, along with Cinderella.
