Disney Unveils Angel Character for 'Lilo & Stitch 2' Live-Action Sequel

Disney walked onto the stage at D23 in Anaheim on a Friday night in August with a single image: a pink alien with antennae that glowed like tiny lanterns. This was Angel, and she was coming to the big screen.

The character, officially designated Experiment 624, had lived in the animated world for years—a siren whose voice could undo everything, turning reformed creatures back to their destructive selves. She was Stitch's love interest, the one who mattered. Now, in the flesh-and-fur of a live-action film, she was being introduced to the world. Maia Kealoha, the actor playing Lilo, took the stage to present the footage. A fuzzy Stitch waved from the screen behind her, and the crowd understood: this was real, this was happening, and it was coming in 2028.

Chris Sanders, who had voiced Stitch in the original animated film and co-directed it, was returning to helm the sequel. The movie was scheduled for May 28, 2028—a date that felt both impossibly far away and inevitable. The first live-action remake, released just over a year earlier in 2026, had earned more than a billion dollars worldwide. That kind of money changes studio thinking. What had once seemed like a one-off experiment—a beloved animated film translated into live action—had become a franchise.

The announcement itself had come on June 26, a date chosen with deliberate precision. Stitch's government designation was Experiment 626. The studio was speaking in the language of the fans, the ones who had grown up with these characters, who knew the lore, who understood that every number mattered. The original story was simple: a girl named Lilo, lonely and searching for connection, meets an alien who crashes to Earth at exactly the moment she needs him. It was a film about belonging, about finding your person in the wreckage of circumstance.

Director Dean DeBlois, who had helmed the first live-action adaptation, had been asked about sequels while promoting that film. He'd been cautious, measured. He wouldn't make a sequel just because the market demanded it, he said. But he liked the idea of an animated spin-off, something episodic, something that could breathe differently. What he got instead was Sanders stepping in to direct a theatrical follow-up, with the original voice actor eager to return. DeBlois had made one thing clear when he took on the first film: Chris Sanders had to be part of it. "That was one of the first conversations," DeBlois told Variety. "I made sure to get that assurance before I even said yes to the project." Sanders had said yes immediately.

The first film had almost never reached theaters. It was supposed to go straight to Disney+, a streaming exclusive. But the filmmakers believed in it differently. They saw it as a summer blockbuster, the kind of thing that needed a massive screen, that needed the collective experience of a theater full of people laughing and crying at the same time. "It's super funny, it's action-packed, and it's super emotional," DeBlois said. The box office proved him right. Now, with Angel's glowing antennae lighting up the stage at D23, Disney was betting that lightning could strike twice.