Numlock Sunday: Ashley Spencer on the quiet domination of Stitch
By Walt Hickey
Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.
This week, I spoke to Ashley Spencer, who wrote ‘Lilo & Stitch’: How a Fuzzy Blue Alien Became a Disney Cash Cow for The New York Times. Here's what I wrote about it:
Disney is out with a new live-action version of Lilo & Stitch, the latest in its quest to recycle the emotional weight the company has mined over the course of its long animation history. The property is an interesting one, in a kind of classic Disney way: while the original movie did fine upon release, making $273 million globally ($484 million adjusted for inflation), this little alien has had a very, very long tale on the merchandising side. The bat-like alien Stitch has become a bit of an under-the-radar juggernaut brand for the company. In its two most recent annual reports, the Mouse goes so far as to specifically name Lilo & Stitch as one of nine examples of major licensed properties in its IP library. The property joins the compa…