Stitch Leader

We’re now just a few short weeks away from the highly anticipated liveaction remake crash landing in UK cinemas on 21st May, and it’s fair to say excitement has reached fever-pitch levels. 23 years after the original animation graced our screens, the movie is shaping up to smash box-office records.

Disney released the official trailer for Lilo & Stitch in March, at which point excitement for the movie soared. Fans were thrilled by how faithful to the 2002 classic the film looks set to be (even ice cream man is in it!), cooed over Disney’s very fluffy, very adorable CGI Experiment 626, and were delighted by the chaotic, adventurous scenes, all of which were set to an interpretation of Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu and Alan Silvestri’s “He Mele No Lilo” from the first film. While early images and teasers certainly looked promising, the full trailer – which has become Disney’s second most-watched live-action trailer to date, second only to 2019’s The Lion King - doubled down on Disney’s intentions to stay true to Stitch’s (extra-terrestrial) DNA while also catering to a new, much younger generation of viewers.

Written by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes, and directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, the visionary behind Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, the movie stars Maia Kealoha as Lilo and Sydney Agudong as Nani, while Chris Sanders (who co-wrote and co-directed 2002’s Lilo & Stitch alongside How To Train Your Dragon’s Dean DeBlois, and most recently directed the criticallyacclaimed The Wild Robot) reprises his role as the voice of Stitch, a move fans had been vocally demanding ever since rumours of a remake first started circulating. The film also stars Zach Galifianakis as Dr. Jumba Jookiba, Billy Magnussen as Pleakley, Kaipo Dudoit as David Kawena and Tia Carrere as social worker Mrs. Kekoa.

Over the past couple of years, Stitch has firmly embedded himself in public consciousness (impressively, without the aid of any new entertainment content). While the announcement of the upcoming live-action movie certainly helped brand awareness along, it was ostensibly Primark that helped propel the property into the spotlight with its licensed apparel range based on the lovable blue alien. Although the clothing retailer has produced Stitch ranges since 2016, its January 2024 collection resonated with consumers as Stitch’s headstrong and impish yet lovable personality suddenly captured the hearts of countless fans’ like never before. A first look at the renegade alien was then revealed at Disney’s D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in August 2024, before this year’s Super Bowl game saw a trailer featuring Stitch ‘crashing’ the field generate 173.1m views in 24 hours, making it Disney’s most viewed trailer digitally. Indeed, Stitch has been everywhere you look this year – and fans are loving it.

Elsewhere in Consumer Products, there’s been plenty of hype surrounding licensed toys, games and kids’ products, all of which have further propelled the franchise to even greater heights. The genre-defining hit, Disney Stitch Puppetronic by RealFX, saw creator Wow! Stuff make history by becoming the first-ever British toy company to win two TOTY awards in a single year, taking home both the coveted overall Toy of The Year and Tech Toy of The Year titles, while other licensees including Just Play, Ravensburger, Craft Buddy, Simba Smoby, Pyramid and many more have tapped into the property’s existing back-catalogue of artwork, as well as new brand messaging and assets, to bring a raft of new offerings to its rapidly expanding fanbase. The result, as the countdown for the new movie gets underway, is a smorgasbord of Stitch product that channels every ounce of the character’s incorrigible mischievousness and charm.

In this special supplement, created in partnership with Disney Consumer Products, we bring you everything you need to know on a carefully curated selection of these products as well as exclusive insights from the Disney team on the Lilo & Stitch licensing programme. We’ve also spoken with a number of key licensees about the opportunities presented by the new live-action movie to get in on the Consumer Products action, and what sets their ranges apart in a marketplace brimming with Lilo & Stitch… well, everything.

We hope you enjoy this supplement nearly as much as you’ll enjoy the movie, when it is finally released.