Dean Fleischer-Camp, the filmmaker behind indie darling Marcel the shell with shoes ongoes Disney.
The filmmaker directs a live-action version of Lilo & Stitch, the 2002 animated film from Walt Disney Feature Animation. Chris Kekaniokalani Bright is in final negotiations to write the script.
The move puts the project, which will become a tent pole feature project for Disney+, back in the water. Stitch was first thrown into development in 2018 with up-and-coming talent Mike Van Waes writing the script. Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich of Rideback are producing.
Ryan Halprin of Rideback is executive producer.
The Hawaii-focused story tells of the bond formed between a lone human girl named Lilo and a dog-like alien named Stitch, who is designed to be a destructive force. The pursuit of strangers, social workers and the idea of a family figure’s bond in the proceedings.
While not a huge success by modern box-office standards, the well-regarded film was a bright spot in a bad period of Disney’s animation history, launching several direct-to-video sequels and several television series.
Lilo is intended to be a live-action/CG hybrid, a form Fleischer-Camp has proven to master. Marcel is a heartwarming story about a snail on an adventure in the human world. The film is one of the most acclaimed films of the year — it has a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes — and A24 uses a platform release to build word of mouth. It has one of the highest average take-ups per screen and at just 48 screens has made nearly $1 million domestically.
Bright is a Hawaii-born and resident writer whose script Conviction blacklisted.