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

I hope it’s a lot better than that. An overlong battle sequence that was much more economically and convincingly told in the book, and without ridiculous tossings and surfing and whatnot.

 

Oh yeah, the Legolas surf. Its probably the scale of it that the review hints at is my guess. Agree that it can be made better. For Star Wars, i hope we can get a big, raw and authentic ground battle at some point. The one in Rogue One works well, but its more about the fantastic space action.

 

A battle between armies of sword-wielding Jedi and Sith could be interesting.

 

What does a picture of Zendaya have to do with the box office of the next Star Wars film?

 

3CPO market profits

 

We're all living in the next Star Wars film as I speak.

 

Looking forward to jokes regarding Dune: Part Two and TRoS both having

Spoiler

an over-powerful granddaughter killing her evil pale grandfather.

 

She wore that at the premiere of Dune 2; I thought it was a nice touch and kind of Star Warsy. This thread always had its own culture of talking about box office in general; especially when there is no SW movie going on now. Look at the bright side- this thread isn't a war room like it once was. It's has been alive for a decade since right around the time you and I registered accounts.

Yeah, it did look like a mosh pit at times lol. From the trailer at least, it looks better than that; I'm hopeful.

 

Yeah, me too. Villeneuve is also nothing like Jackson as a director.

 

Yes, but some (or many) of us are guilty of the sin of infidelity- cheating on Star Wars with Dune.

 

Amen to that. The ST box office threads were….pretty intense. Now, we all agree.

 

Right, speaking of battle sequences.

Intense is a good word for it. Before TFA, it was high intensity sometimes spilling over into utter chaos, lol

 

I disagree.

 

I’m a mod. That’s my job.

 

Presales are jumping for Dune, with a typical forecast of 65-80 million for the opening weekend. The real reviews come out this Wednesday the 21st, and with outstanding reviews that look to be coming, I'm going with 100 million.

Looks like Denis is going to be making Dune Messiah, which is awesome.

Timothy and Zandaya are huge right now, with Wili Wonka topping 600 million worldwide. You can't say going from Wonka to Paul Atreides isn't quite the acting range.

Speaking of which, I think both of them would be great for SW.

 

Great news.

When Denis is done with Dune, give him a chance to make a Star War. And let him do it how he wants to do it.

 

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic (or maybe realistic) but after Bob Iger threw Nia DaCosta under the bus for the failure of "The Marvels," saying things like

I doubt any director is going to be given complete free reign as long as he's around.

 

I think it would undoubtedly be a worthwhile risk for LFL to give Denis enough control to entice him to make a SW movie.

He is my #1 pick to direct SW, but in reality, I don't see it happening. LFL would have to get Disney onboard for that decision also (the agreement to not micromanage him), so I don't know.

Reviews out in the morning.

 

97% so far with 85 out of 88- including 32 out of 34 top critics. I think we have a winner here.

Dune: Part Two | Rotten Tomatoes

I'm holding to my high prediction of 100 million on the OW. Presales have been a bit better than Oppenheimer, and with reviews and (probably) word of mouth, I think it can top Oppenheimer. Dune 2 is long, but so was Oppenheimer, and Oppenheimer was disadvantaged being an R rated film.

Oppenheimer did 82 million on its OW. It ended up at just under a billion WW and will cross that number soon with its rerelease in China. I think Dune 2 has the potential to cross 1 billion WW also.

 

Problem with giving too much control in something like Star Wars is that at some point you gotta say No you can't do that because (Enter franchise lore here), so no one really can have full control over these projects. Like Marvel for example, no one can fully have control over those projects either

 

Tell Villeneuve he has full artistic control over it (apart from Final Cut authority, which is impossible), as long as he just generally doesn’t break major lore barriers. He can choose totally new characters in a totally new part of the galaxy if he wants (and given his past comments about Star Wars, he likely would). Just let him render Star Wars in his own unique, meditative, epic style.

If Dune 2 turns out to be as good and popular as it seems it might be, Lucasfilm would be silly not to take notice. I think fans are pining for a quality jump in Star Wars, and he could help do that. A sort of anti-JJ restart, if you will.

 

It doesn't sound like DV is jumping onto Dune Messiah absolutely quickly (although the studio will want him and pressure him to get it done soon). So even the most remote idea of him doing a SW movie wouldn't even have a chance until a few years after DM comes out.

 

At this point in the late evening, there have been no more negative reviews since early in the day, and it may push into 98% in the next few days.

Total votes are 109 out of 112 with top critics at 36 out of 38.

Yes, I think Denis could make a movie that avoids the general canon framework, which would solve a lot of potential problems. Then all LFL would have to do is keep him within the lore of powers, which wouldn't be that hard. SW storylines have played with the idea of Jedi-type powers in those without an allegiance to Jedi or Sith, so there is a lot of room for Denis to maneuver in a star system far away from everything else in the main story.

I positively can't think of anyone in the last 12 years since Disney bought SW that I think would be better suited to make a SW movie than Denis in the coming years. I just don't know about all of that working out; it's a lot of moving parts and variables.

 

Cuaron, Lowery, Eggers, Villeneuve and Bigelow are all my top choices to helm Star Wars movies. And all very unlikely. One can hope.