In its ongoing effort to adapt its entire animated back catalogue into hybrid live-action/CG efforts (where the story calls for the latter at least, and this one surely will), Disney has had plans to give Lilo & Stitch the treatment since at least 2018. The first piece of casting for the movie has emerged into the wild, as The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Zach Galifianakis is aboard.
The original film, directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, followed Lilo, a lonely Hawaiian girl who forms a bond with a doglike extraterrestrial creature, whom she names Stitch. Stitch, who is engineered to cause chaos, has a change of heart as Lilo teaches Stitch the importance of "Ohana" the Hawaiian concept of family and introduces him to the music of one Elvis Presley. The movie was successful enough to spawn to straight-to-home-entertainment sequels, a TV movie and a TV series.
Though Jon M Chu was attached to direct in 2020, he's since become slightly busy making not one but two movies from the musical Wicked. But there's good news to soothe any disappointment, as Marcel The Shell With Shoes on director Dean Fleischer Camp is aboard, working from a script by Chris Kekaniokalani Bright.
No one is saying who Galifianakis is playing, but the search is now on to find actors for Lilo and her older sister, Nani. Disney has this one currently set for a 10 May, 2024 release, but we'll see if that sticks.