Maia Kealoha’s film career will hit the ground running. Deadline has confirmed that the newcomer has been cast as Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, Disney+’s live-action version of the Hawaii-set 2002 animated pic.
Kealoha’s casting is reminiscent of another Polyneisa-centric Disney film, 2016’s Moana, in which Hawaii-born then-newcomer Auli’i Cravalho was chosen to voice the lead character from the fictional island of Motunui.
Dean Fleischer Camp — fresh off an Oscar nom for Marcel the Shell with Shoes On — will direct the film, which also stars Zach Galifianakis.
It follows the relationship between a lonely girl named Lilo and Stitch, an alien engineered to be a force of destruction. Chris Kekaniokalani Bright scripted the new film, from a previous draft by Mike Van Waes.
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