{"id":691309,"date":"2026-05-24T20:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691309\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T20:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T20:53:10","slug":"star-wars-box-office-rebound-the-mandalorian-and-grogu-makes-major-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/691309\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars Box Office Rebound: ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Makes Major Gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter a bumpy opening day, the Force has thrown its weight behind Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, Jon Favreau<\/a>\u2018s feature film adaptation of his hit Disney+ series appeared at risk of scoring the lowest box office<\/a> opening of any title in the storied Star Wars franchise since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut all bets were off when the movie snagged a franchise-best audience score of 89 percent on Rotten Tomatoes \u2014 the best of any Star Wars film since Disney took over \u2014 and equally strong exit scores on PostTrak, especially among youngsters as Baby Yoda, aka Grogu, made the leap from the small screen to the big screen. Disney insiders believe Mando could become the most family friendly film of any title in the iconic series, at least in modern times.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow it has a fighting chance of matching or besting the dismal debut of 2018\u2019s Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/a>, the current record-holder for the lowest opener in the Disney era. The ill-fated standalone film, which was expected to rake in north of $300 million in its worldwide launch, finished Memorial Day weekend with a dismal worldwide total of $165 million, including $103 million for the four-day holiday in North America and $63 million overseas. Solo, costing a whopping $275 million or more to produce before marketing, lost tens of millions of dollars. Mandalorian and Grogu\u2018s net budget, albeit not cheap, was a far more modest $165 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, Disney and Lucasfilm executives were no doubt on pins and needles when Mando topped Friday\u2019s domestic box office chart with a worrisome, series-low $33 million from 4,300 theaters, behind the $35.4 million earned by the ill-fated Solo on its opening day in 2018, not adjusted for inflation. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe big wild card was walk-up business on Saturday and Sunday. That is when families, who are notoriously hard to track, came into play. Walk-up business was indeed strong on Saturday, with Mando earning more than Solo. Hence, the studio \u2014 which is also counting on a strong Sunday \u2014 is now projecting that the film will open well ahead of expectations domestically with a four-day haul of $102 million and and $63 million overseas for a global start of $165 million. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe pic is playing across all age groups, including the elusive 55 and older crowd, while the gender split so far is 67 male and 43 percent female. Kids, especially boys under the age of 13, are going nuts for the film, giving it an A CinemaScore and 5\/5 stars on exit polling service PostTrak. Parents gave it 5\/5 stars as well. General audiences bestowed the film with an A- CinemaScore and a stellar 4.5\/5 stars on PostTrak. Reviewers aren\u2019t as enthusiastic, although the critics\u2019 score on Rotten Tomatoes had risen several points by Friday morning to 64 percent before dropping to 62 percent. Solo fared better with critics at 69 percent but was slapped with a dreadful 63 percent audience score on its way to topping out at a dreadful $393.2 million globally. <\/p>\n

\n\tDisney believes Mandalorian will enjoy long legs thanks to the audience scores, similar to recent hits including Hail Project Mary, Michael and The Devil Wears Prada 2. While mega-openings are few and far between in the post-pandemic era, movies that work are holding in longer. And Mando is playing in all premium formats, which are accounting for 53 percent of global ticket sales, and is booked in Imax for three full weekends. So far, Imax is accounting for 15 percent of all PLF tickets sales, or $24.4 million for the four days, it\u2019s third-best showing ever for Memorial Day. <\/p>\n

\n\tOverseas, the movie opened in every major market timed to its North American debut save for South Korea. Good weather in the U.K., a stronghold for the franchise, and other parts of Europe dampened ticket sales as people rushed to spend time outside following days of cloudy skies and rain, but Disney expects any deficit to be rectified in the days to come.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new tentpole, which marks the first Star Wars film to play in theaters in seven years, continues the story of The Mandalorian, Favreau\u2019s record-breaking series that helped launch Disney+ and introduced the world to Baby Yoda (Grogu), who became a beacon of hope just before the pandemic struck and a merchandising breadwinner worth north of $1 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into the weekend, tracking services showed Mandalorian and Grogu opening to roughly $82 million at the domestic box office for the four days, while some exhibitors saw it coming in as high as $95 million or as low as $70 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy Saturday morning, Disney insiders said the movie was on course to earn a better-than-expected $92 million to $96 million for the four-day holiday weekend, including somewhere in the $77 million range for the three days. Rival studios were more bullish than Disney in predicting a four-day domestic opening of $95 million to $100 million for Mandalorian. <\/p>\n

\n\tDisney continues to point out that Mando began its life on the small screen, so it is an entirely different proposition from previous titles in the Star Wars pantheon, and introduces new characters not tied to the saga movies or stand-alone features. The studio says the movie will drive significant value across the broader Disney ecosystem, including consumer products and Disney+. The Mandalorian is the most-watched original series in the history of the service, with more than 1.3 billion hours streamed globally. Star Wars attractions at Disney\u2019s parks are also in on the action, including a new Mandalorian and Grogu mission within Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run that debuted day-and-date with the film, a first-ever for the company. There is also a major integration with Fortnite.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie sees Pedro Pascal<\/a> return as the\u00a0Mandalorian, a bounty hunter also known as Din Djarin, who is charged with protecting Grogu. Favreau directed from a script he wrote with Noah Kloor and Dave Filoni, who earlier this year was\u00a0upped<\/a> to oversee\u00a0the creative direction of Lucasfilm as president and chief creative officer following Kathleen Kennedy\u2019s departure (he was a George Lucas prot\u00e9g\u00e9).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the film, the Mandalorian is tasked by Sigourney Weaver\u2019s Colonel Ward of the New Republic to rescue Rotta the Hutt, voiced by Jeremy Allen White. Martin Scorsese also voices a memorable, four-armed food stand chef.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other big headline of the Memorial Day weekend is the runaway horror hit<\/a> Obsession<\/a>, directed by Curry Barker<\/a> of YouTube fame. The film<\/a>, from Focus Features and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, is coming in No. 2 in its sophomore outing <\/a>with $22.4 million for the three-day weekend after enjoying an almost unheard of 30 percent increase over its opening gross<\/a>. The film is projecting a four-day haul of $28.2 million for an 11-day domestic total of $58.5 million against a minuscule production budget south of $1 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tLionsgate\u2019s Michael Jackson biopic also continues to defy expectations as it crosses the $300 million mark domestically for a global cume north of $700 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Devil Wears Prada 2 also remains in fashion as it celebrates crossing the $400 million overseas and $600 million globally for 20th Century Disney.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story was originally published on May 23 at 9:53 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a bumpy opening day, the Force has thrown its weight behind Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6471,49,48,65684,75,84120,337,68813,6625,175444,194597],"class_list":["post-691309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-box-office","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-curry-barker","tag-entertainment","tag-jon-favreau","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-pedro-pascal","tag-solo-a-star-wars-story","tag-star-warsu00a0the-mandalorian-grogu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}