Lilo and Stitch director addresses why a major character from the 2002 original was cut

As Lilo & Stitch continues to smash the box office, fans of the original 2002 Disney film are wondering why Captain Gantu was cut from the live action adaptation.

We finally have an answer, as the new film's director Dean Fleischer Camp has recently addressed this change – and why he stands by the decision.

"Gantu was one of those things that just didn't work so well in live action. We explored it a bit, but ultimately we had to make the decision," he told CinemaBlend.

"And also I do stand by the decision", he continued, "'cause I feel like a lot of the things that in trying to ground these characters more and tell a story with a little more emotional depth, especially between the sisters, I feel like you have to free up real estate to allow that breathing room to do those things."

In the 2002 movie, Captain Gantu from the United Galactic Federation travels to Earth after Jumba and Pleakley fail to capture Experiment 626 (aka Stitch). In the movie, the alien pair is played by Zach Galifinakis and Billy Magnussen, who take on a human form, but Gantu is left out of the story.

"I think my approach to the film is to respect the fact that animation is a very different medium than live action", explained the director. "And I don't think it usually works when – there's a danger in just trying to port it in one-to-one. Literally just depict it in photo-real photography because I think you lose a lot of expressiveness and all these things that animation does better than live action. There are a lot of those.

"There's ways it can also cheat that live action can't, and live action can also do things better than animation can't, which is what we kind of tried to write a little bit more towards in recalibrating it for a live-action film," added Fleischer Camp.

It seems like Captain Gantu was not needed to make the new Lilo & Stitch a roaring success anyway – the live-action remake grossed $341.7 million globally after only one weekend, which is almost $100 million more than the original 2002 movie made in total.

Lilo and Stitch is in theaters now. For more, check out our guide to all the new Disney movies that are in the works, or see our guide to the biggest upcoming movies of the year to plan your theater trips.