Tia Carrere and Amy Hill, who respectively played Nani Pelekai and Mrs. Hasagawa in the original animated continuity, are playing new characters Mrs. Kekoa and Tūtū in this film.
Jason Scott Lee, who voiced David Kawena in the first two chronological films, will play the role of a luau manager.
The night before filming was supposed to begin, a trailer containing $200,000 worth of costumes for the first three weeks of filming was destroyed by fire. The Honolulu Police Department is investigating it as a first-degree arson; Hawaii has an unfortunate history of arson targeting the local film industry.
Filming was halted in July 2023 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The timing couldn't have been worse either, as the film reportedly had just one week left of filming at that time.
When the film was first announced to be in development back in October 2018, Mike Van Waes was hired to write the script. However, Disney was not impressed with his draft and did not greenlight it. Chris Kekaniokalani Bright was later hired to rewrite it.
Jon M. Chu was speaking with Disney about directing the film in November 2020, but by May the following year, he would bow out due to his other obligations directing Wicked and China Rich Girlfriend.
In record time for the film's casting. On April 17, 2023,The Hollywood Reporter reported that newcomer Kahiau Machado was cast as David Kawena. Just hours later, however, it was discovered that he used a racial slur as the title of a years-old public Spotify playlist.note Another report also claimed he used the same slur on an Instagram post. Although the playlist was wiped shortly thereafter, his profile containing the playlist was already previously archived via Wayback Machine web crawls in 2019 and 2020. Thus, with the damage already done, Disney quietlydropped Machado and recast David with Kaipo Dudoit.note Machado has also apologized for the past use of the slur on Instagram.
Working Title: Bad Dog, referencing how the mischievous Stitch gets adopted as a dog. More amusingly, to add to this, the production company established just for this film was named "Blue Koala Pictures, Inc.", after the blue alien's resemblance to the marsupial.
Ascended Fanon: Leroy from Leroy & Stitch wasn't given a number in the film but he is called Experiment 629 by fans and wikis. Although some commercials that aired before his debut and some Japanese and Disneyland Paris merchandise numbered him 628, most fans rejected that as there was already an Experiment 628, who was seen in pod form at the end of 627's episode but was never activated, while Leroy was never officially numbered by Jumba in the film. (Jumba tried to number him 627, but Gantu reminded him that he already made Experiment 627.) In June 2020, a side story of the manga Stitch & the Samurai released through the Japanese version of Disney Tsum Tsumdesignated him as Experiment 629◊, while a 2021 licensed sticker book did that for Western fans, finally ending years of that number being fanon for him.
Cash-Cow Franchise: The franchise's owners aside, the success of the original film and the huge popularity of Stitch has led to Lilo & Stitch becoming the only major DAC-based cash cow from the Experimental Era of the 2000s. Its success is even greater going eastward from the U.S.
Children Voicing Children: In the Western animated continuity, all the young human characters were voiced by child actors. Averted with the EastAsian shows, which (quite obviously, especially in the English versions) had adults voicing children.
Contest Winner Cameo: Tickle-Tummy (X-275), though she was accidentally left out of the list of experiments in Leroy & Stitch despite having been seen in The Series.
Executive Meddling: Not the original film itself, thankfully, but the franchise was badly mismanaged by Disney in the U.S. thanks to their overly aggressive marketing of Stitch (especially in Walt Disney World), the Contested Sequel status of the later films and first TV series, and the absolute hatred towardsStitch's Great Escape!, which caused a number of older Disney fans to hold a grudge against him.
Fake Nationality: Downplayed; Lilo and Nani Pelekai are Americans like their voice actors, being that Hawaii is a U.S. state, but they're Native Hawaiians. Lilo's primary voice actor Daveigh Chase and Lilo & Stitch 2 voice actor Dakota Fanning are both Caucasians from the U.S. mainland. Nani's voice actor Tia Carrere was born and raised in Hawaii but is of Chinese, Filipino, and Spanish ancestry.
In North America, the franchise peaked somewhere around Stages 3 or 4, but Disney's aforementioned Executive Meddling of the whole franchise caused it to lose all momentum and become a strange hybrid of all three Stage 6 scenarios, if only because it's still a reasonably successful (if niche) Disney-owned franchise. However, its continued success is more or less defined solely by the massive popularity of Stitch through merchandise and little else, to the point the franchise is now more often promoted by just his name. To this day, many North Americans (and Westerners in general) are not even aware that the franchise proper had been getting new spin-offs featuring him made—mostly outside of the United States—going all the way to The New '20s.
It's a little better going eastward.
The franchise has a slightly bigger presence in Europe; not only did the anime's English and other language dubs air in full there, one can go see Stitch Live!, a.k.a. Stitch Encounter, in Disneyland Paris and possibly even see Jumba, Pleakley, and some of the other experiments over there during special events. Also, unlike in North America, they sell plush toys of Leroy in that region.
In East Asia, especially Japan, the franchise has near-mainstream popularity. Stitch! and Stitch & the Samurai were made in Japan, Stitch & Ai and two mobile games based on the franchise (Stitch! Super Chef and Stitch!Now) were made in China, Stitch Encounter operates in Tokyo Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, and previously in Hong Kong Disneyland where it originated, Tokyo has an exclusive Stitch-themed version of The Enchanted Tiki Room, Tokyo's (now ended) version of Fantasmic! had a Lilo & Stitch segment with Angel making an appearance, more Lilo & Stitch characters are available for regular meet-and-greets in Tokyo, and a crapton more Stitch merchandise are sold over in the region.
Franchise Zombie: Creatively speaking, Sanders did not intend for his film to lead into anything else; for him, it was a one-and-done thing. His involvement in the sequel films and The Series were only to record some of Stitch's voice lines, and he has not been involved in any non-crossover media in the franchise at all since he left Disney in 2007. Plus, as the years went on, Lilo and much of the other cast were mostly phased out in favor of the ridiculously popular Stitch, to the point that Disney has mostly rebranded the franchise as Stitch in 2021. Disney has done some course correction in The New '20s with the Agent Stitch books and the upcoming Dynamite comic book series, bringing Lilo and the original Pelekai ʻohana back into focus, but those go more after the puristic fans by being direct sequels to the first film. Because of that, the experiments other than Stitch are left out of new Lilo & Stitch works, although Angel still gets new merch and crossover video game appearances (most recently in Disney Speedstorm) and some of the other experiments do get merch once in a blue moon.
God Does Not Own This World: Despite being the creator, Chris Sanders was only creatively involved with the original film. Everything else that involved him was just voice work for Stitch plus a couple one-shot characters. Thanks to some fans trying to point out things that were established in Lilo & Stitch: The Series in the comments of some of Sanders's TikTok videos, he had to leave replies and pinned comments to them saying those things were added by the creators of that show and that he didn't make his film with the intention of turning it into a TV series. Jess Winfield of the franchise's TV showsnote executive producer and writer of Lilo & Stitch: The Series plus its pilot and finale films, and the voice of Dr. Jumba Jookiba since 2009 was arguably the franchise's curator during its run in animation, and even he didn't have a full say over things.
Kids' Meal Toy: The American branch of McDonald's did three different runs of Lilo & Stitch toys:
The first run occurred in 2002 to promote the first film, featuring plastic bobblehead toys of the main cast on surfboard keychains.
Europe and Australia featured a different set of toys, while Asia featured an elaborate playset.
In either 2003 or 2004, its second run saw plastic toys of Lilo, Stitch (twice), Pleakley, and a spaceship. They came with Lilo & Stitch: The Series-labeled cups of Play-Doh that were squeezed through the toys for small "practical effects", such as Stitch sticking out his long tongue.
In February 2022, small hangable Stitch plushies were released to promote the first movie's 20th anniversary, although this promotion was under the Disney Stitch branding that began the previous year instead of Lilo & Stitch.
Nani's boyfriend, David, was voiced by Jason Scott Lee in the first movie and Stitch Has a Glitch, and by Dee Bradley Baker in all subsequent appearances.
Ben Diskin was the English voice of Stitch in animated works after Chris Sanders left The Walt Disney Company in 2007, playing the role in the Stitch! anime and Stitch & Ai. However, Sanders remains the official voice in Western media.
Likewise, Lilo & Stitch: The Series executive producer and screenwriter Jess Winfield took over the role of Jumba Jookiba in those two East Asian shows, replacing David Ogden Stiers (who would pass away on March 3, 2018), though Stiers reprised his role of Jumba one last time in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Today, Piotr Michael has become Jumba's English voice in Western media, beginning with Disney Speedstorm.
Unisex Series, Gendered Merchandise: An interesting case where the gender focus in merchandising shifted over time. While the film and the franchise always held a unisex appeal, much of the merchandise and some of the marketing during much of the franchise's heyday focused more on young boys, with Disney believing that Stitch's mischievous and sometimes crude behavior and sci-fi aspects appealed more to that demographic. This led to such merchandise as "Stitch boogers" being sold at Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, this backfired, as older Disney fans were turned off by this focus on his negative traits while boys didn't seem to care much. In the years since the end of the main continuity in 2006, most of the franchise's merchandise now target the female demographic, with Disney emphasizing Stitch's cuteness more, the pink, female, Stitch-like experiment Angel managing to receive merchandise years after her two shows ended (and after the anime where she is more prominent failed in the U.S.), and the increasing prominence of Lilo's rag doll Scrump to the point that Disney now pairs the doll up with Stitch frequently. That being said, much of the current Disney Stitch branding re-emphasizes Stitch's mischief and gross behavior by using a wacky and rather crude-looking graphic style with purple and either acid green or teal, so it goes either way.
Word of God: While Chris Sanders more or less acknowledges that the name of Stitch's language is called "Tantalog", he made it clear that Tantalog was a concept developed by the creators of Lilo & Stitch: The Series, not himself,note i.e. Stitch's alien dialogue in the first film was meant to be gibberish, yet the guys behind the show fleshed it out into something more. and the phrase "Meega nala kweesta" does not mean, "I want to destroy."
including this one, claiming that they suggest the animated originals are "lesser". He even expressed his frustration over Disney's unwillingness to take risks even though they're more than capable of doing so. Ironically, DeBlois would later begin working on a live-action/CG adaptation of his How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.
