The Memorial Day weekend of 2025 will go down in history as a seismic moment for the box office, with two Hollywood juggernauts—Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning—igniting ticket sales and shattering records. Together, the films fueled the largest Memorial Day weekend ever, grossing a combined $326.7 million domestically over the four-day holiday, surpassing the previous record of $314.3 million set in 2013 by Fast & Furious 6 and The Hangover Part III. Globally, Lilo & Stitch soared to $610.8 million, while Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning climbed to $353.8 million by June 3, 2025. Both films exploded with massive audiences, critical praise, and cultural buzz, but beneath the surface of their box office triumphs lies a stark financial reality: despite its impressive haul, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is on track to lose money, a sobering reminder of the high stakes of blockbuster filmmaking.
Lilo & Stitch, a live-action remake of Disney’s 2002 animated classic, opened to a record-breaking $183 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, with a global debut of $341.7 million, including $158.7 million from international markets. The film, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, tells the heartwarming story of a young Hawaiian girl, Lilo (Maia Kealoha), who adopts a mischievous alien, Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders), amidst her family’s struggles. Its opening weekend alone surpassed the entire global gross of the original animated film, which earned $273 million in 2002, and cemented its place as the biggest Memorial Day opener ever, overtaking Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick ($160 million in 2022). By its second weekend, Lilo & Stitch added $113.1 million internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $610.8 million, with top markets including Mexico ($45.9 million), the United Kingdom ($34.5 million), and France ($23.1 million).
The film’s success can be attributed to its broad appeal and strategic positioning. Disney tapped into the nostalgia of Gen Z and millennial audiences—60% of ticket buyers were non-parents and kids—who grew up with the 2002 film and its subsequent TV series, which has amassed 546 million hours viewed on Disney+ and $2.5 billion in retail sales in 2024 alone. The live-action Lilo & Stitch resonated particularly with teenage girls and younger women, a demographic that drove ticket sales with their enthusiasm for the story’s themes of found family and resilience. Critically, the film earned a 69% score on Rotten Tomatoes and an “A” CinemaScore from audiences, signaling strong word-of-mouth that has propelled its ongoing run. With a production budget of just $100 million, plus roughly $100 million in marketing, Lilo & Stitch needed to gross around $250 million to break even—a threshold it surpassed in its opening weekend alone. Its trajectory suggests it could reach $1 billion globally, potentially dethroning A Minecraft Movie ($947 million) as the top-earning Hollywood film of 2025.
Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth installment in Tom Cruise’s action franchise, delivered a franchise-best debut with $77.5 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, including a $63 million three-day opening. Globally, the film opened to $204 million, with $127 million from 64 international markets, and by its second weekend, it had reached $353.8 million worldwide, with key territories like China ($25.2 million) and the United Kingdom ($22.3 million) leading the charge. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the film continues the story of Ethan Hunt (Cruise) as he battles a rogue AI, The Entity, in what has been billed as Cruise’s final outing as the iconic spy. The film’s opening day gross of $24.8 million marked the best in the franchise’s history, surpassing 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout ($22.8 million), and its four-day total set a new benchmark for the series.
Audiences and critics alike embraced the film’s high-octane action and Cruise’s death-defying stunts, including a much-publicized sequence where he hangs from a biplane. The film earned a 79% Rotten Tomatoes score and glowing five-out-of-five stars from PostTrak audience polls, reflecting its appeal to longtime fans and older moviegoers who turned out to see Cruise’s “final” mission. Social media buzz was electric, with fans on platforms like X praising Cruise’s commitment to theatrical spectacle, one user noting, “Tom Cruise never fails to deliver cinematic marvels.” The film’s premium format screenings, particularly in 400 IMAX auditoriums secured for three weeks, contributed significantly to its gross, with IMAX alone accounting for $31 million globally, or 14.2% of its opening weekend total.
Yet, despite its explosive box office performance, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning faces a financial quagmire. The film’s production budget ballooned to a staggering $400 million—making it one of the most expensive films ever made—due to delays from the COVID-19 pandemic, Hollywood labor strikes, and the extensive costs of its action sequences. With global marketing expenses estimated at another $100 million, the film needs to gross approximately $800 million to break even, a threshold it is unlikely to reach given its current trajectory. While its predecessor, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, grossed $565.7 million worldwide in 2023, it was considered a financial disappointment against its $290 million budget. The Final Reckoning’s $353.8 million global total after two weekends, while impressive, suggests it may stall around $600–700 million, far short of the break-even point.
The financial disparity between the two films highlights the divergent strategies of Disney and Paramount in the modern blockbuster landscape. Disney’s Lilo & Stitch was a calculated risk, with a modest budget that allowed for profitability even with a moderate performance. Its $100 million production cost was a fraction of what Disney spent on recent live-action flops like Snow White ($270 million), which grossed just $205.1 million and failed to break even. By contrast, Paramount and Skydance bet big on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, banking on Cruise’s star power and the franchise’s legacy to justify its astronomical budget. Paramount insiders argue that each new Mission: Impossible film increases the value of the entire library, boosting home entertainment sales and rentals of previous titles, but this long-term gain does little to offset the immediate financial loss.
The broader context of the 2025 box office adds another layer to this tale of triumph and trouble. The Memorial Day weekend marked a significant rebound for theatrical exhibition, with domestic ticket sales for January 1 to May 26 totaling $3.3 billion, up 22% from the same period in 2024. Analysts project the 2025 domestic box office could reach $9.2–$9.5 billion, a recovery from 2024’s $8.7 billion but still below pre-pandemic levels like 2019’s $11.4 billion. The success of Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible—alongside holdovers like Final Destination: Bloodlines ($186.7 million globally)—demonstrates the enduring appeal of diverse, theatrical-first releases. As theater owners look ahead to a packed summer slate, including Superman, How to Train Your Dragon, and F1, the Memorial Day surge offers hope for a sustained recovery.
For Rachel Zegler, whose Snow White was overshadowed by Lilo & Stitch’s success, the comparison underscores the challenges of navigating Disney’s live-action remake strategy. While Lilo & Stitch tapped into a recent, politically neutral property with universal appeal, Snow White struggled with a nearly century-old story, controversial CGI, and Zegler’s polarizing public persona, leading to its financial failure. Yet Zegler’s career continues, with upcoming projects like She Gets It From Me offering a chance to move forward.
In the end, Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning both exploded at the box office, but their financial fates couldn’t be more different. Disney’s lean, nostalgic gamble paid off, positioning Lilo & Stitch as a potential billion-dollar hit. Paramount’s high-stakes spectacle, while a crowd-pleaser, is poised to lose money, a cautionary tale of blockbuster excess in an era where profitability matters as much as spectacle. As the summer box office heats up, the contrasting fortunes of these two films serve as a reminder that even the biggest explosions can leave behind very different legacies.