Chris Sanders

Early life Christopher Michael Sanders was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on March 12, 1962.

He had been intensely interested in comic strips and filmmaking, especially animation, from an early age. He was the only one of three siblings in his family to borrow his father's Super 8 film camera and, with encouragement from his father towards his drawing interests, make his own comics. He later got interested in animation upon learning about the camera's single-frame feature. He initially wanted to take art classes at the school but was dissuaded when he asked the art teacher to teach him cartooning, only for the teacher to reply, "Comics aren't art." Sanders created a character named "Stitch" for an unsuccessful children's book pitch. When Sanders was the head storyboard artist for Disney Feature Animation, then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner decided that, in the wake of a number of high-profile and large-budget Disney animated features during the mid-1990s, the studio might try its hand at a smaller and less expensive film. The storyline required a remote, non-urban location, so Sanders chose Kauaʻi as the location. Stitch became the central character of the 2002 film Lilo & Stitch, which Sanders co-directed and co-wrote with Dean DeBlois. Sanders would also end up voicing the character he created for the film. The film's commercial and critical success spawned a franchise with three sequel films and three television series, with Sanders reprising his role of Stitch throughout the original 2002–06 run of the franchise (Sanders did not reprise his role for the English dub of the anime Stitch! or the English-language-produced Chinese animated series Stitch & Ai, with Ben Diskin taking over the role for both series), as well in several later Disney crossover works such as Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, and the Disney Infinity series.

In the late 1980s, Sanders created an allegorical picture book entitled The Big Bear Aircraft Company, with the subheading "A book for the big retreat" clarifying that it was created for a Disney offsite event. The Big Bear Aircraft Company is a thinly disguised version of Disney itself, and the book is critical of the creative process at the company, which prioritized "big ideas, figuring they will be big successes" and noted that if proposed aircraft (i.e., movie ideas) "don't look the same as the ones [that were] built before, [the boss, Big Bear] gets uncomfortable." After handing each idea pitched by the "visual engineer" to a writer who "likes airplanes" but "has actually never worked on one before, and couldn't tell you for sure what makes one fly", the story states the assigned writer "is guaranteed of making the same mistakes every time. He will make his airplane look like everyone he's seen before ..." In the end, the head of the company, Big Bear, gets an airplane that is "a lot like last year's; not very inspiring and not very memorable. But people bought it before, and they'll probably buy it again. By playing it safe, he's insured his company's survival." However, since it is not the only aircraft company, these policies are destined to leave the company vulnerable to more imaginative competitors "with its wings of good reputation all shot off." The story concludes that Big Bear should instead give the visual engineers "the two things they need to do their job: Bear's trust and time" to allow smaller, more innovative ideas to flourish. Years later, to explain his motivation regarding the piece, Sanders wrote about his concern over "the ever-growing complexity of our films, and what I saw as an emerging pattern they were all cut from", citing the example that during the story development for Mulan, one of the major concerns was the manner of the villain's death rather than the idea that the villain had to die at all. This in turn motivated him to develop Lilo & Stitch, which he summarized as "a story about a villain who becomes a hero."

By December 2006, Sanders had been removed as the director of the upcoming Disney animated film American Dog by John Lasseter. By March 2007, Sanders had been negotiating his exit from Disney. After the departure of Sanders from Disney, directing duties were handed to Chris Williams and Byron Howard, and the film was retitled Bolt. Sanders later stated he had no ill will over being removed from the film, and hoped he could revisit some of his ideas in the future. He approved of the final film and the changes made, stating: "I think it would have been frustrating if the movie were essentially the same but with only slight changes. And I suppose my scenes and storylines are still sitting there on the shelf. I could actually pull them out and do them again. But it would be completely different." Despite his departure from Disney, Sanders continues to voice Stitch in all official Disney media except for the aforementioned Eastern-produced shows. (Sanders incorrectly claims that he's "done Stitch's voice for everything since the first film," At the time, Sanders said about the move: "I've been so anxious to start working on things, and so I talked to a lot of people...) I like the way DreamWorks looks at animation. Animation still has a lot of different places to go, and I don't want to miss out on a chance to try some new things with it." The film was released on March 26, 2010, and was a huge success with both critics and at the box office, grossing nearly $500 million worldwide. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score at the 83rd Academy Awards. The movie also won ten Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature.

After completing How to Train Your Dragon, Sanders returned to The Croods, which was released on March 22, 2013. He shared directing and writing credits with Kirk DeMicco, who had joined in the middle of production. The film proved to be a success, grossing over $500 million. However, the sequel was revived in September 2017, although with Joel Crawford replacing both Sanders and DeMicco as director. After the sequel was out, now titled The Croods: A New Age, Sanders and DeMicco were both credited for the story while Sanders reprised his role as Belt.

20th Century Studios/return to Disney

In October 2017, it was announced that Sanders would be directing a new film adaptation of the 1903 Jack London novel The Call of the Wild for 20th Century Fox. The film, his live-action and solo directorial debut, was released in February 2020. The film received mixed critical reception, with a 63% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (as of March 2024), making it the lowest-received film in Sanders's directorial career thus far, and grossed $107.6 million on a budget of $125–$150 million, becoming Sanders's first directorial box-office bomb.

While it was speculated in February 2020 that Sanders would reprise his voice role of Stitch in the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, he claimed in a September 2022 interview that Disney had not yet approached him on reprising the role, although he stated that he was always open to returning to voice his creation. In April 2023, it was confirmed he would reprise his role in the remake, which was released in 2025, earning over $1 billion in the global box office. Sanders would ultimately do five voice recordings for the film, each session taking about four hours, which he stated was hard for him to maintain his "Stitch voice" for such a long period of time. The film was released in September 2024 to critical acclaim. The following month, Sanders confirmed that he would be working on a sequel to the film. By March 2026, it was confirmed he was only returning as screenwriter for The Wild Robot Escapes.

On July 23, 2025, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Sanders would be writing the script for the sequel to the live-action Lilo & Stitch, which Sanders himself confirmed at a Lilo & Stitch panel held at San Diego Comic-Con two days later. The magazine later reported nearly a year later on June 12, 2026, that Sanders would also be directing the sequel, which will be his second live-action directorial effort.

Personal life Sanders married writer Jessica Steele-Sanders on May 18, 2015, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Together, they wrote an illustrated novel, titled Rescue Sirens: The Search for the Atavist (2015). He has a daughter named Nicole. Sanders filed for divorce in September 2023 citing "irreconcilable differences", but has since withdrawn the divorce as of 2025.

Filmography Film

Animation department

Executive producer How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019) How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Voice-acting credits

Television

Voice actor

Video games

Selected awards and nominations Ceremony Year Category Nominated work Result Academy Awards 2003 Best Animated Feature Lilo & Stitch 2011 How to Train Your Dragon 2014 The Croods 2025 The Wild Robot Annie Awards 1998 Outstanding Writing in a Feature Production Mulan Outstanding Storyboarding in a Feature Production 2003 Outstanding Directing in a Feature Production Lilo & Stitch Outstanding Writing in a Feature Production Outstanding Character Animation in a Feature Production 2011 Outstanding Directing in a Feature Production How to Train Your Dragon Outstanding Writing in a Feature Production 2014 Outstanding Directing in a Feature Production The Croods 2025 The Wild Robot 2026 Winsor McCay Award BAFTA Awards 2011 Best Animated Film How to Train Your Dragon 2025 The Wild Robot Best Children's & Family Film Critics' Choice Awards 2003 Best Animated Feature Lilo & Stitch 2011 How to Train Your Dragon 2014 The Croods 2025 The Wild Robot Golden Globes 2011 Best Animated Feature Film How to Train Your Dragon 2014 The Croods 2025 The Wild Robot