{"id":469031,"date":"2026-05-27T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/469031\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T05:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T05:35:09","slug":"the-mandalorian-and-grogu-obsession-drive-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/469031\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Mandalorian and Grogu,’ ‘Obsession’ Drive Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast,<\/a> in our box office segment, Variety\u2018s Rebecca Rubin carefully measures the turnout over the Memorial Day weekend holiday for Disney\u2019s \u201cThe Mandalorian and Grogu.\u201d<\/a> It was a big test for Disney and Lucasfilm and the strength of the Star Wars franchise at the turnstiles. Meanwhile, Focus Features\u2019 horror pic \u201cObsession\u201d<\/a> had a strong sophomore weekend outing.<\/p>\n

\n\tRubin, who is Variety\u2018s box office expert and senior writer for film and media, explains that \u201cMandalorian and Grogu,\u201d which came in at $100 million worldwide in its opening frame, faces a bar that is high even by the standards of blockbusters, but not quite as lofty as \u201cStar Wars\u201d a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOn one hand, it\u2019s significant for any film to debut above $100 million. But then on the other hand, this is Star Wars. This is one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest film franchises out there. And with that comes a certain level of box office expectation,\u201d Rubin says. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis start is pretty on par with \u2018Solo: A Star Wars Story,\u2019 which was their last attempt at a spin off. And the other way that you could look at this is it\u2019s on par with \u2018Solo,\u2019 which is really their only financial flop in the Star Wars universe. There\u2019s a big asterisk there because \u2018Solo\u2019 was really expensive. It cost almost $300 million to produce. This movie, comparatively, was more modestly priced. It was $165 million to produce. So the difference being they have very different metrics for what commercial success would look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe biggest test for \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d will come this weekend. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s notable here is analysts are taking a wait and see approach, because the second weekend is going to be really indicative of if it\u2019s just the fans that came out to see it, or if it is having appeal beyond that core demographic,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

\n\tFocus\u2019 horror pic \u201cObsession<\/a>\u201d delivered a pleasant surprise in its second weekend by surpassing the tally for its opening frame. Rubin says much of the credit goes to the YouTube following of director Curry Barker.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor a horror movie to increase its ticket sales by 30% from its opening weekend is a really remarkable statistic. And it is a very low budget film, so it\u2019s going to be wildly profitable. And this is a movie that is really bringing out young audiences. A lot of it is attributed to the director,\u201d Rubin says. \u201cCurry Barker is activating his audience and actually getting them to go to theaters for a movie that has fantastic reviews and really strong audience scores. And so a lot of the times with horror movies, we see huge drops in the second weekend. And for the most part, horror movies tend to not have the best reviews. So this is just unprecedented on all levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Daily Variety<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, in our box office segment, Variety\u2018s Rebecca Rubin carefully measures the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9959,93,61,60,270,2379,51665],"class_list":["post-469031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-daily-variety","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-the-mandalorian-grogu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}