Discussion The Mandalorian and Grogu Box Office Thread - Releasing May 22, 2026

There will also always be an oval office.

 

Stick a Star Wars movie in December and your bound to get close to a billion.....

 

Depends if get one or two movies a year. I think a solid 800-900 million each time.

 

One might automatically think that SW will be slotted into the non-Avatar December spots. However, there's also a little thing called "Spiderman".

Although, I can see Spidey taking July slots if LFL makes the move to claim the December slots. If we have 2 movies a year, then Memorial Day and Christmas it is. Gonna be interesting to see if we get a bunch of release dates announced for SW (and others) in 2024.

 

Some time ago in some galaxy some distance away.

 

My feeling is that Lucasfilm will continue to have offices. And also boxes.

 

I also hope they move Star Wars releases to December permanent. It just feels more right now. Genuinly think that Solo would have done better if they had moved it to Christmas. I think they chose to open Spiderman No Way Home at Christmas because it was the first big movie to have the chance to profit on peoples post covid cinema interest again. Marvel are better suited for summer anyway. Funny is that The Marvels now looks like it could make less in total domestic gross- than Solos 4 day opening weekend. So i think Marvel will stay away from November, December in the future.

 

It's interesting. When TFA was first announced to be released in December, my knee-jerk reaction was "oh no, that's not good". But as its release got closer and closer, it brought back TONS of nostalgia to when SW toys were hot items for Christmas when I was a little kid. Besides, while the original was released in May, it didn't hit most mainstream areas and gain steam until fall.

That said, there are only so many Decembers available unless the Rey, Filoni, Dawn, Lando movies along with any sequels are supposed to be released over the next 10-12 years!

And I do agree with Marvel being suited for summer. Not even sure if first week of May will stick for MCU much longer (unless F4 and Xmen really take off). And it's true I cannot see The Marvels making $100 million domestic.

 

Stick Star Wars mostly to December so yes LFL need to grab those spots asap - Spidey can go back to the traditional May, July spots

 

Wow with Disney seeing failure after failure lately, I am not looking too hopeful for any Disney sanctioned film at the box office. Wish is at a 49% RT score. Disney has been box office poison since the pandemic other than a couple MCU films but lately they have also been DOA.

 

I don’t see a bright future for Star Wars at the box office at this point. The anticipation and hype for Episode 7 in ‘15 was nowhere near what it was for Episode 1 in ‘99, even though it was still a financial success. A new trilogy would have even less anticipation, imho, and not enough time has passed for ticket price inflation to even make it appear to be in line financially with previous episodes.

Now, if George Lucas were allowed to have creative control and direct another Star Wars film, I could see that generating a lot of interest, but still not as much as Episode 1.

 

Both TPM and TFA had the major benefit of a long absence of live action Star Wars, something the next film won't have. So the question now is what will generate interest?

I think first and foremost, it comes down to wanting to see more stories with established characters. So the success of the New Jedi Order film will really depend upon how eager audiences are to see more adventures with Rey (even though she'll likely be more in a supporting role). And naturally, what are the stakes of this next stage of the mythology?

For the New Republic film, there's plenty of built in interest with many characters, but I think it's worth noting that there's been a drop off in reception since the second season of The Mandalorian. There's going to need to be a significant build up to this film for casual audiences to care.

The Dawn of the Jedi film is the biggest wild card because it's an entirely new era with new characters. Most Star Wars live action projects have the benefit of either a familiar era / aesthetics or some familiar characters, but this is arguably the first to have neither. So beyond needing a compelling story, I think this will need to rely on strong characters to draw in casual interest. I think it also might need a major movie star to lead it, or at least a recognizable name.

I think the bar for the New Jedi Order and the New Republic films is still $1 billion worldwide since they've got baggage leading into them. I guess the bar for the Dawn of the Jedi is pretty wide open, but surely it can't be in the neighborhood of Solo or worse. $500 million worldwide seems doable.

 

A really good kick-*** trailer. Seriously. If they edit together an exciting and compelling trailer for the Rey film everyone except the most hateful of ST haters will be frothing at the mouth to see the film.

I think this film faces the biggest challenge. As you mentioned there's been a drop off in reception since TM S2, so it seems they've missed their chance to strike while the iron was still hot. I honestly have no idea how they are gonna make this appeal to casual fans who may or may not have seen all the shows. A great trailer maybe? I wish them the best of luck and I'll certainly be in the theater when it premieres.

I think the clean slate of this film could be an advantage and I'm sure the marketing of this film will focus on the fact that it's the origin film of the Jedi (and GFFA stories in general) which I think will be very appealing to most. I do wonder if Disney will be able to resist the urge to buck the SW trend of casting unknowns in the lead roles; with the ST they had the draw of the big 3 returning but with this DotJ film I could see them wanting to stack the deck in their favor by casting recognizable names.

 

The irony is that i don't think a clean slate will be appealing to a large portion of the audience. Its fair to say nostalgia sells and when it stops selling, rarely does something new and different gain that same appeal.

But Lucasfilm know if they want to branch out they need to take that risk.

 

They always make great trailers. For decades now, the trailers have been consistently better than the films.

 

I don't think the box office for the Marvels indicates that doing a Disney Plus Spin off movie, like a Ahsoka/Mandalorian/Skeleton Key movie, makes for a film people want to see in theatres. Like Marvels, they'll see it as paying for a Plus Size Disney Plus episode.

I mean, I'll see it just fine but I think Marvels shows Disney Plus theatrical spinoff is a bad idea

 

I think it is if it gives fans something they will spend money to see. That's why I can't help but to fully believe that they will somehow bring in Luke and Han (and Leia in a cameo with Billie playing the role). A mid story end game of sorts that comes before the sequels. One last time to see them all together will be box office gold.

Then, for the finale of everything (episode 12) they will have a smash brothers event with Force ghosts helping live Jedi take on a mystical power that will somehow be explained to have been behind EVERYTHING that has gone on between the light and dark side. We'll have that "other" thing that people wanted to see (and some even made well received fan edits of) which is the ghosts of Luke, Leia, Yoda, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, etc helping out).

Btw, was Ahsoka's voice heard by Rey at the end of TROS?

 

But how many streaming show fans will show up in theatres, not many as evidenced by Marvels crashing. You need to appeal to people who don't have a D+ sub. A Mandalorian and other D+ shows spin off movie doesn't have wide appeal

 

The Marvels were not that intresting set up, other then good Actress who act to save the movie.

 

Is this why the first season of Mandalorian, which featured exactly zero established characters, was such a major hit and pop culture phenomenon?

 

It had a maskless man like Boba Fett and a baby frog