Last year, theater owners and industry professionals wrung their hands as Memorial Day box office performance tanked. This year could not be more different.

Disney’s Lilo & Stitch is crushing Memorial Day weekend box office records while Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is running in a distant second.

Disney and the filmmakers behind the live-action redo recruited one of the original's writers and directors, Chris Sanders, to reprise his role from the traditionally animated movie as the voice of S...