After Lilo & Stitch became one of the biggest 2025 movie releases, anyone could have guessed Walt Disney Studios might have a sequel on their minds, and a couple months after its record-breaking opening weekend, the House of Mouse announced Lilo & Stitch 2 is in development. As someone who really enjoyed the movie (as written in my Lilo & Stitch review), I’m excited to see what’s next for Lilo, Nani and the little blue alien with a dangerously high badness level. But, I also have some thoughts about what I don’t want that could be seen as a spicy take.
I basically grew up on all things Lilo & Stitch. Along with the original animated movie still being one of my favorite movies ever, I have a lot of good memories about the direct-to-video sequels and the TV series. Now that the movie has established its live-action version of the origin story, I hope it veers off into new territory. Let me get into it.
What's Happening With Lilo & Stitch 2
So, what do we know so far? Walt Disney Pictures greenlit a sequel in late June, and a month later it was reported that the original creator of Stitch/the voice of the character, Chris Sanders, is being lined up to write the script. Sanders is the best choice I can think of to take on the sequel, because Stitch is practically his child, and he’s made so many great family-oriented movies, like The Lion King, Mulan, How To Train Your Dragon and most recently, The Wild Robot.
If there are two people who know Stitch the best, it’s Sanders and Dean DeBlois, who wrote and directed the animated Lilo & Stitch with him, but DeBlois is also hard at work on the second How To Train Your Dragon live-action movie. There’s no release date or story details out in the world for Stitch 2 yet, but I imagine once Sanders has a script ready and approved, production will happen quickly after. Especially since Lilo's young actress is growing by the minute.
There Are Multiple Sequels And A TV Show The Sequel Could Pull From
If you’ve seen the animated sequels and TV show there’s a pretty straightforward path for what could happen next. Basically, we learn that Jumba has a ton more experiments like Stitch, but each of them have their own personalities and superpowers to a degree. After the events of the first movie, a bunch of them hatch on Earth, and it becomes Lilo and Stitch’s job to find them, and make them part of their family, which just keeps growing and growing.
Looking back, it was a really sweet way to continue to tell the “Ohana” story at the center, and later spin the narrative into an episodic series where, in each episode, they find a new experiment. Then, there’s the first sequel, which is about Stitch having a “glitch” where he reverts to his former programming randomly and starts acting out even more than before.
I do think it would be fun for Lilo and Stitch to meet more of the experiments, but I’m also worried, from a practical standpoint, how that would look in live action. I thought they nailed Stitch, but I think it would look a lot wackier and random in live-action than it did in animation, and that makes me worried. Plus, there’s the issue of Gantu not being in the original movie and how that could pose a problem in the sequels, visually. Should I also remind you all of the bunny-like alien, Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, from the sequels and TV show?
But, I Don't Necessarily Want To See An Adaptation Of Them
There was a lot of backlash over the live-action movie, especially for how it had some notable changes, not only with Gantu, but with a more villainous Jumba, Nani going to college in San Diego, and the new character of Tutu taking Lilo in at the end. But, I actually appreciated the changes because I felt they (mostly) played into it being a live-action movie rather than simply treating it like every decision made in animation could be accomplished the same, with the same effect.
As you go deeper into the Lilo & Stitch franchise, I think there was a lot of leaning on the animation medium over narrative, and it just won’t work as well in live-action. So, that’s my hot take. I really don’t want to see the original sequels be retold, I want something new.
Live-Action Lilo & Stitch Was At It's Best When It Focused On The Human Storylines
I think the best part about the live-action Lilo & Stitch that had a leg up from the animated movies was the human stories between Lilo and Nani. I felt like having human actors really deepened their storyline of being sisters who were orphaned and working through a really emotional time as their family is restructured. Nani thought she could raise Lilo herself, but it proved to be difficult for the 18-year-old.
I think the movie ended on something that could be explored further. With Nani trying to start her life as a college student in San Diego, and Lilo and Stitch back in Hawaii and with a portal gun, some sort of hijinks have to come out of that, right? I like the idea of there being more space/alien adventure in the sequel, but I think there needs to be that gooey center focused on their relationship, and none of the direct sequels really had anything to do with Lilo and Nani’s sisterhood story.
I hope that Disney stays on the track of what made Lilo & Stitch good rather than listening too much to the angry fans who wanted to see a retread of the animated version. But, hey, maybe that’s a hot take, considering the reaction I’ve seen about the movie since it came out.
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