Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1985, and voiced the character. Sanders continues to voice the character in nearly every Disney production to date. Sanders began his career as a character designer for ''
Jim Henson's Muppet Babies''. He then served as lead storyboard artist for
Walt Disney Animation Studios, and was a
storyboard artist, artistic director, production designer, and character designer on the company's films
Beauty and the Beast,
Aladdin,
The Lion King, and
Mulan. In 1985, 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.
DreamWorks Animation By March 2007, Sanders had moved to
DreamWorks Animation and had then taken over as director on
Crood Awakening (later renamed to
The Croods), a project previously in co-production with
Aardman Animations before they departed from DreamWorks. 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 directing 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.{{cite web |last=Kit |first=Boris |title='Lilo & Stitch 2' Brings Back Co-Creator Chris Sanders to Write Script ==Personal life==