{"id":131896,"date":"2025-05-26T00:03:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T00:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/131896\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T00:03:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T00:03:27","slug":"mission-impossible-and-lilo-stitch-lift-hopes-for-summer-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/131896\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Mission Impossible\u2019 and \u2018Lilo & Stitch\u2019 lift hopes for summer box office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n

Simply sign up to the Media myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Movie fans flocked to see Disney\u2019s Lilo and Stitch and the eighth instalment of Paramount\u2019s Mission: Impossible franchise, giving Hollywood hope for a return to box office growth after years of disappointment.<\/p>\n

Cinemas in North America raked in more than $260mn through Sunday, setting a record for Memorial Day bank holiday, considered the start of the US summer movie season. The performance marked a 20 per cent improvement from last year\u2019s dismal showing, one of the worst Memorial Day weekends ever.<\/p>\n

The strong weekend results come ahead of what many expect will be a strong slate for the summer and the rest of the year. This summer has a number of anticipated films, including F1, starring Brad Pitt and produced by Apple, in June, followed by Warner Bros\u2019 Superman\u00a0and Disney\u2019s Fantastic Four in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a one-hit wonder of summer movie seasons,\u201d said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore. \u201cThe slate is there this year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Already, the North American box office is up 21 per cent from a year ago, thanks to A Minecraft Movie, Captain America: Brave New World and the breakout hit Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a significant shift from the trend in recent years, when a patchy release schedule owing to Covid-19 disruptions and the 2023 Hollywood strikes<\/a> left cinemas with a dearth of new films for weeks at a time.<\/p>\n

There is a healthy supply of non-franchise films scheduled for the summer season, including Wes Anderson\u2019s The Phoenician Scheme, released on Friday and Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Caught Stealing in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Two other sequels, Wicked Two and the third instalment of James Cameron\u2019s Avatar, will be released at the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lilo & Stitch took in $145.5mn over three days and is expected to hit $183mn for the holiday weekend, making it the best performing movie of the weekend. The movie, about a lonely Hawaiian girl and an alien, also opened in first place worldwide, taking in $341mn, Comscore estimates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mission: Impossible \u2014 The Final Reckoning, starring Tom Cruise, broke a record for the nearly 30-year-old franchise, earning $63mn through Sunday and an estimated $77mn for the holiday weekend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US box office is likely to return to growth this year after shrinking in 2024, analysts at Bank of America said in a recent research report. Studios are becoming more cost-conscious, with marketing campaigns shrinking from six to nine months to three months, while poorly performing films are being moved to streaming services more quickly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a dream scenario after a tumultuous few years\u201d for cinemas, \u00a0 Dergarabedian said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Media myFT Digest — delivered directly to your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-131896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114571214478868020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}