The long-gestating remake of Lilo & Stitch would have found its director. A report on Thursday revealed that Dean Fleischer-Camp, who recently helmed the critical darling Marcel the shell with shoeshas been attached to direct the new version of Lilo & Stitch. Chris Kekaniokalani Bright is said to be in talks to write the script. Producers for the project will include Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, with Ryan Halprin serving as executive producer. It’s unclear at this point if the film will be released theatrically or on the Disney+ streaming service.
Fleischer-Camp is best known for directing the various Marcel the shell short films, as well as the recently released theatrical film. He has also directed various short films, as well as episodes of Brody Stevens: Enjoy!.
“I mean, I think it’s such a gift as a filmmaker to have made a short that you know works and it’s like we’re making a film adaptation of it because the short was so much fun,” Fleischer-Camp said recently. ComicBook.com of his work on the Marcel the shell film. “So that’s such a great tuning fork to have in your back pocket. Any time you’re like, ‘Something’s wrong with that,’ you can come back to these and say, ‘Oh, d’ OK. Well, it’s not really in the grammar of the movie, otherwise Marcel would never say that or anything.”
“It’s so incredibly helpful to have that. And then I think that was often the case with Jenny and I, because we had been developing this character for so long, knew Marcel so well, and I know the Marcellian visual language. Well, at this point, it becomes… Sometimes I can’t even really articulate it very well, like right now. But when you see it, you’re just like, ‘No, it’s ‘is wrong. Obviously, this is false. ‘ So I think it’s a combination of that and always wondering, is this a documentary? Would this character really do that during a documentary? Would you actually be able to… A lot of times the difficulty of writing this, this Nick Paley, our co-writer and I would come across, it’s like, it’s a documentary, so how do you tell a story that’s scripted and who deserves and needs great moments of emotion? How would you do that if you were a documentary and you couldn’t just have a character monologue by itself in a perfectly composed shot? So I think finding the language was important.
A live action Lilo & Stitch was reported for 2018, leaving many fans curious to see how the unique story could be adapted into a live-action setting. Previous rumors had suggested that Jon M. Chu, whose work includes In the heights and boobies rich asianwas in talks to direct the film.
Are you excited about the Lilo & Stitch live action movie? What do you think of the arrival of Dean Fleischer-Camp in the project? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
h/t: Deadline