![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f29cade47a0c25db939834a387d117d3.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nOnce you\u2019re part of the ohana, you\u2019re part of it in animation and live-action.
\u00a0
Chris Sanders, who co-created, co-wrote and co-directed the original Lilo & Stitch animated movie, will now direct Disney\u2019s sequel to its live-action Lilo & Stitch megahit.
\u00a0
Sanders, who also voiced the character of Stitch in both animated and live-action form, was already deeply involved with the feature as its screenwriter. The sequel is now on the wave to production, with shooting due to begin later this year.
\u00a0
Jonathan Eirich, who produced the initial live-action remake, is back as producer via Rideback. The company\u2019s Ryan Halprin is exec producing.
\u00a0
Stitch centers on a lonely girl who befriends a blue puppy that turns out to be an escaped alien engineered to be a weapon of mass destruction. The original movie produced some memorable lines, such as \u201cOhana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind,\u201d and was followed by two direct-to-video sequels,\u00a0Stitch! The Movie\u00a0and\u00a0Stitch Has a Glitch,\u00a0as well as\u00a0Lilo & Stitch: The Series.\u00a0
\u00a0
Disney rebooted the title with the live-action feature that, thanks to families and Gen Zers who grew up on the original, powered to over $1 billion dollars at the box office, $423.7 million of that domestically.
\u00a0
The sequel will be a brand-new story.
\u00a0
The 2025 movie was directed by Dean Fleischer Camp (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On). Chris Kekaniokalani Bright and Mike Van Waes were the writers.<\/p>\n
Rideback\u2019s next feature is Best of the Best, a competition dance comedy that will debut on Netflix in September.<\/p>\n
More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n
Sanders is mighty name in the animation field. He co-wrote and co-directed the original animated movie with Dean DeBlois and the two later went to work together on the first How to Train Your Dragon. Sanders then co-wrote and co-directed\u00a0The Croods\u00a0with Kirk DeMicco and solo directed The Wild Robot, DreamWorks Animation\u2019s 2024 adaption of the Chris Brown book that won nine Annie Awards and scored three Oscar nominations. He is developing a sequel, The Wild Robot Escapes.
\u00a0
The Stitch sequel will not be Sanders\u2019 live-action debut. That was made with the 2020 adaptation of The Call of the Wild, which starred Harrison Ford along with plenty of CGI animals, and likely a handy training ground for his new project.
\u00a0
He is repped by WME and Lichter Grossman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n
Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once you\u2019re part of the ohana, you\u2019re part of it in animation and live-action.\u00a0Chris Sanders, who co-created, co-wrote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[303031,26614,88,16067,206],"class_list":["post-700612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-chris-kekaniokalani-bright","tag-chris-sanders","tag-entertainment","tag-lilo-stitch","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}