The global box office received a well-needed shot of adrenalin heading into the summer this weekend as Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning helped propel cinemas to record numbers over the holiday weekend.
Disney’s latest live-action adaptation of its animated classics swept away the bad taste left by Snow White as Lilo & Stitch claimed top spot with $341 million worldwide, including a domestic three-day weekend of $145.5 million (the four-day holiday weekend projections put it at a Memorial Day weekend record of $183 million). That marks the third-best opening for Disney’s remakes after The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, and also surpasses the original box office gross of the animated Lilo & Stich movie, which earned $273.1 million back in 2002.
Following behind in second place was Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, with Tom Cruise’s eighth and potentially last outing as Ethan Hunt debuting to $190 million worldwide, including a franchise-best domestic three-day weekend of $63 million and an estimated $77 million through to the holiday Monday. The strong start will no doubt have been met with some sighs of relief, given the somewhat tepid response to the previous instalment and the fact that The Final Reckoning carries a reported $400 million budget, making it one of the most expensive movies of all time.
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Elsewhere at the box office, Final Destination Bloodlines earned $42.6 million to take its global tally to $187.1 million, becoming the highest-grossing entry in the horror series. Marvel’s Thunderbolts* added $14.7 million to cross the $350 million mark in fourth place, followed by Ryan Coogler’s Sinners in fifth place with $10.7 million.
