{"id":688696,"date":"2026-05-23T03:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688696\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T03:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:42:11","slug":"the-mandalorian-and-grogu-will-make-money-but-will-it-save-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688696\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mandalorian and Grogu Will Make Money, But Will It Save Star Wars?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tListening to Disney insiders, their message is clear: The Mandalorian and Grogu<\/a> will charm audiences and make money, dank farrik.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest estimate for the film\u2019s four-day weekend global box office is $160 million-$170 million or more, slightly up over early tracking a few weeks back, with The Mandalorian expected to best the $148 million global bow of 2018\u2019s Solo: A Star Wars<\/a> Story. Domestically, it could end up with $95 million to $100 million range for the four days, short of Solo\u2018s $103 million four-day number over the 2018 Memorial Day frame. In other words, there may be apocalyptic \u201cworst opening for a Disney Star Wars movie ever\u201d headlines come Sunday and Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film wasn\u2019t expensive by Star Wars standards \u2014 it has the lowest production budget of any previous title made since Disney acquired Lucasfilm. But nor was it cheap: $165 million before a global ad campaign of at least $100 million, likely more. Those close to Disney\u2019s decision-making confirm the Jon Favreau film needs to make $500 to $600 million globally to land in the black. Solo topped out at only $393 million globally, but Mando already has far better audience scores that combat heavily mixed reviews<\/a>, with critics granting it a 64 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. The Mandalorian\u2018s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is currently an upbeat 88 percent.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Memorial Day tentpole is showing particular strength among moviegoers under 13 and men over 55, a potentially potent combination that likely reflects the film\u2019s appeal to families, particularly kids who like Baby Yoda along with boomers who like Pedro Pascal\u2019s Clint Eastwood-in-space persona. (PG titles that play like family pics have become the box office story of 2026; to boot they enjoy incredible holds). Mando grossed $12 million in Thursday previews, even lower than Solo, but it was on par with Avatar: Fire and Ash and Project Hail Mary.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat the box office math ignores is the film\u2019s rising tide effect for the studio. The Disney+ Mandalorian series inspired north of $1 billion in merchandising sales, with the Star Wars franchise in general, generating roughly $1 billion per year. The brand\u2019s most popular toy in 2021 and 2022 was Grogu. So the studio hopes that more Baby Yodas and gaggles of Anzellans will be flying off the shelves. The film is also expected to have a positive impact on parks, premium VOD and Disney+.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe impact it will have on Disney+ is critically important to us,\u201d says one Disney executive. \u201cNot only could it ultimately end up on the service and get tens of millions of hours of watch views, it will also have an impact on Mandalorian seasons one through three. And what we\u2019re also finding is that it is already helping not only The Mandalorian, but the entire Star Wars catalogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, one would expect any new Star Wars movie \u2014 particularly the first in seven years \u2014 to boost viewership of other Star Wars titles.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe larger concern from orbit goes like this: Even among those who like the new film, the consensus seems to be that it\u2019s merely good, not typical Star Wars-level operatic great. The franchise\u2019s last movie, 2019\u2019s The Rise of Skywalker, was pilloried by critics and fans, though still managed to squeak past the $1 billion mark globally (people wanted to see how the Skywalker Saga story concluded, but were decidedly unimpressed with the result). And before that came Solo.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then there were those TV shows, which ranged from the outstanding (Andor, the first two seasons of The Mandalorian) to the panned (The Book of Boba Fett, The Acolyte, Obi-Wan Kenobi). <\/p>\n

\n\tAs we\u2019ve seen with Marvel, one film cannot tarnish a brand, but several titles in a row that are widely viewed as less than worthy can become a drag on a franchise \u2014 as former Disney boss Bob Iger himself has admitted<\/a> (\u201ca little too much, too fast\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[The Mandalorian] is actually mostly meeting our \u2018mid\u2019 expectations,\u201d one exhibitor said. \u201cNo one ever really thought that this would be a massive, colossal success, especially once their piss-poor [trailers] launched. The fan response so far feels like the consequence of making Star Wars not special and forcing it into a never-ending IP factory. They were wise to take a lot of time off after the Rise of Skywalker, but they spent that time making seven live-action shows, only one of which was consistently great.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAnother top exhibitor is of a different opinion. \u201cThis movie could play to families in a big way, so it could open closer to $100 million domestically,\u201d the person said.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother message from inside Disney: the next Star Wars film \u2014 2027\u2019s Star Wars: Starfighter \u2014 is far more of a real test, since Mando is a Disney+ series that leapt from the small screen to the big screen. While that may sound like classic goal-post moving, at least one rival executive agrees: \u201cIt\u2019s a Mandalorian movie, with very little new Star Wars characters in it. It\u2019s not a Star Wars movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWho at the studio deserves credit or blame for The Mandalorian & Grogu can be framed different ways: The project was greenlit under former Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy. Yet it\u2019s co-written by the studio\u2019s new co-chief Dave Filoni, who \u2014 along with co-writer and director Favreau \u2014 were the architects behind several of the Disney+ shows (excluding Andor).<\/p>\n

\n\tSources say Disney leadership, including Entertainment Studios chairman Alan Bergman, have\u00a0 accepted there will always be a core group of fans that will never be happy with any title \u2014 whether it involves Star Wars, Marvel, or even Pixar\u2019s upcoming Toy Story 5, which many expect to easily make $1 billion. These sources say Bergman\u2019s mission is to \u201cmake entertaining movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd if some don\u2019t feel like The Mandalorian fulfills that mission, there\u2019s always Starfighter (also greenlit under Kennedy). Disney had to be thanking its lucky stars for casting Ryan Gosling in the lead after another Gosling-in-space movie, Project Hail Mary, became a critical, box office and pop culture phenomena this year.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re done shooting Starfighter and it\u2019s being cut together now,\u201d says the Disney source. \u201cWe definitely have a plan as to what we\u2019re going to do next with the franchise after that. We\u2019re knee-deep into it. This has been an ongoing plan for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne exhibitor agrees that Starfighter will represent, as they say, a new hope for the studio.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRyan Gosling starred in the most zeitgeist-y crowdpleaser in years and will lead what appears to be Star Wars: Top Gun,\u201d the exhibitor quipped. \u201cSo there is a reason to feel positive. Lucasfilm can\u2019t possibly screw that up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listening to Disney insiders, their message is clear: The Mandalorian and Grogu will charm audiences and make money,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344,31331,106875],"class_list":["post-688696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-star-wars","tag-the-mandalorian-and-grogu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}