The upcoming “Lilo & Stitch” live-action remake is receiving even more backlash following the news this week that newcomer Kahiau Machado has officially been cast as Nani’s love interest David Kawena.
As we previously reported, people were left outraged last week upon finding out that Sydney Agudong was set to play Lilo’s big sister, Nani, with many saying she looked nothing like the character in the original animation. A lot of fans from the 2002 flick complained that though the actress has Hawaiian ancestry, choosing her to portray Lilo’s sibling was questionable, to say the least.
I think they should cancel this movie 😭
— 🐨 (@sadofilms) April 17, 2023
Now, fans are coming with the same energy for Kekumano, who social media users say is another poor decision from casting directors as some users, particularly on Twitter, are urging for the forthcoming movie to be canceled altogether.
Kekumano is fairly new in the filmmaking industry, having previously starred as Young Arthur in “Aquaman” and Jason in the low-budget motion picture, “Press Play.” Landing this particular role is undoubtedly going to do wonders for his career, but people are saying he doesn’t even resemble Kawena from the animated film.
“maybe the headshots arent doing them justice idk lol,” one user said, willing to give casting directors the benefit of the doubt. ” think they should cancel this movie,” another wrote, accompanied with a crying emoji, while a third person continued, “Cmon internet, find the hate you had for the original sonic design and bully the casting director into better picks.”
funny how he deleted his instagran and created a new one a few days ago… but internet footprint is real
kahiau machado you will never see the light. https://t.co/UW1K2rix7K
— miles SCHOOL SPIRITS SPOILERS (@adoreschandler) April 17, 2023
Damn. It didn’t take long for people to find out that Kahiau Machado is anti-black as hell.
— ☆*:.｡. (¬_¬) .｡.:*☆ (@Neutral_Turtle) April 18, 2023
Another person begged to differ, puzzled as to why people feel so passionate about actors not being identical to the animated characters in the previous film. “It’s so funny to me how now suddenly the skin color do the actor is very, very important to the left,” they said. “Suddenly keeping your movie true to the original is very, very important and serious.”
“This casting is missing a lot. I don’t get the eurocentricism they’re going with,” one Twitter user added, while another shared, “They lost me with these last two castings for this live action remake movie.”
The upcoming live-action remake won’t be hitting theaters until next year, so only time will tell how things fare out during production. But given that Disney is helming the project, and considering how well they’ve done with their live-action remakes in the past, it would be unfair to assume that casting directors didn’t know what they were doing by casting two of the lead roles to Kekumano and Agudong.