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

I'm glad I know @Darth Chiznuk for reasons like that. Because of him, I can honestly tell people, "I know a guy who's travelling to Chicago to watch nine movies (that he's already seen countless times) back to back in a theater."

 

You know when you say it like that it sounds crazy…

 

That sounds exhausting at any age honestly
And I mean that more mentally than anything else. I would be bored out of my mind.

Fortunately, as a perennial night owl, I didn't have to worry about doing that in order to be among the first ones to watch that movie. I just went and saw it with my friends at 1:00 am on the day that it premiered, and while the theater was full of people, you could still just go on the day of the movie earlier that day and buy your tickets for the same night.

 

Your talking a tv show movie - where the last season was average so $350 - $400 mill would be considered good.....

 

Agree that the last season was not the strongest, but they are not making a feature film with the prospect of it barely making more than Solo. Sometimes, the audience is not there any longer, like it was for Dial of Destiny. Or they overvalue their product, like thinking a Captain Marvel sequel will make bank just because the first filim made a billion. But i dont see any of that happening here. They look at the potential and have two main characters they feel can sell to a bigger audience. And its about timing. First Star Wars film in 7 years should create some buzz.

 

A Star Wars movie returning to a May release date, three weeks after an Avengers film and a few weeks before a PIXAR sequel... I'm sure we won't mess this up again.

All kidding aside, I'm fairly sure this film will be more anticipated than Solo, and will likely have the benefit of a longer promotional schedule. But I also don't think it's a complete slam dunk either. The market seems to have lowered expectations for blockbuster tentpoles, and fewer films seem to break the billion dollar barrier in a post-Covid environment, unless they have extraordinary hype and appeal. Only six films in the last 3 years have broken that barrier, whereas nine did it in 2019 alone.

Look at this year's biggest film so far: Dune Part 2, which is just short of $300 million domestic and $700 million worldwide. Those are good numbers now, but pre-2020 they would have been considered modest at best. It's not impossible for The Mandalorian and Grogu to make a billion dollars, but I think surpassing the Dune current totals feels more like a realistic benchmark, and it will need to do so amidst heavier competition.

 

Yeah, sort of agree with that. Although the box office is still a bit of a head-scratcher. You have Dune 2 that has two of the biggest stars in the world right now in it - making good money, but still a lot less than Oppenheimer. Who maybe did ride on the Barbie zeitgeist and had star power of Nolan of course, But still, it manage to make almost a billion. Avatar 2 also met expectations. You still have less movies making it to the billion dollar mark though than pre covid.

For me: This is not the movie i wanted them to relaunch Star Wars as a cinematic experience with, but i will support the film anyway, and hope its good of course. A long and well planned marketing campaign will do. They have the chance to do that for this one. Not the rushed ones they did for Solo and TROS.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/caroli...fice-profits-fail-to-cover-cost-of-lucasfilm/

 

I'm not entirely sure why this is particularly notable. Four of the five movies grossed over $1 billion. One of them grossed over $2 billion. Obviously thee production costs of the movies are factored into the overall cost of purchasing Lucasfilm... but they're also not the only, nor the primary, revenue stream. There's merchandise, there's Galaxy's Edge, there's the books and comics and video games, there's licensing. All of that contributes to the collective ROI.

 

And the cereal. Don't forget the cereal.

 

I had to read through that Forbes article, and there are some errors, but thankfully not as many as when good old Star Wars hater Scott Mendelson writes for Forbes. No doubt that TFA cost a lot and Rogue One and Solos budget should have been reduced, if there was not for the massive reshoots. Disney was always going to spend a ton on the first movie anyway. The first one with the OT legacy stars since 1983. TFA made a fortune in licensing, tie in promotion deals and merch. Generated a ton of money outside box office that the article just skips, only in the last paragraph she mentions this. Its also clear that Star Wars was not to make a quick profit with them releasing «only» 5 films. Compare that to the Marvel purchase that has seen the MCU released over 30 feature films. The article also states that they have no clue on how to calculate the success of the Disney + streaming series.

 

I'm not sure the most interesting take is that Disney haven't made their money back, but instead, that it alludes to the notion that they will potentially never make their money back (if they stick to the same kind of production model). I suspect they (Disney) may want Lucasfilm to be a bit more modest with their budgets and running costs going forward.

 

That article was clearly intended for a specific audience. When Disney claimed that Star Wars has seen a 2.9 ROI they were never claiming that the box office alone was seeing that. They were claiming that the box office+ publishing+ all other material (such as toys and Disney Plus products) made Star Wars have a 2.9 ROI.

The person that wrote that article was just searching for the material they needed in order to publish the headline they wanted to in response to the Hollywood Reporter article about a month ago about how successful Marvel and Star Wars has been for Disney.

Forbes writers aren't technically Forbes employees and are more just individuals that Forbes pays whenever Forbes publish one of their articles. So you should view Forbes articles more as the writers personal blog than something actually coming from people employed by Forbes.

 

Sure. But thats a general Disney problem. Pixar needs to reduce its workforce with 20% this year. Buzz Lightyear movie cost over $200 mill and lost money. Same goes for Marvel and Kevin Feige. The Marvels cost almost $300 mill to make, and has lost Disney over $150 mill. About the same Disney and Lucasfilm lost on Dial of Destiny. Its a Disney problem. They need to make films cheaper in the long run and Iger have said they will do. And shift focus from streaming to cinema again.

 

In anycase the argument is for not as Disney has made their money back off of the purchase of Lucasfilm. Hollywood Reporter published it a month ago. This writer clearly just wrote this article in response to that.

 

Yeah, and it smells, just reading the comments under the article - Disney go woke or broke. Well, of course, thats the problem. Ahh. Woke up Disney

 

Yep. And given that these writers are contributors and not necessarily paid staff some of them will do stuff like that. Write things that will bring in the clicks.

 

The Phantom Menace made $ 8 million ( number 2 movie in North America after Fall Guy) and globally $ 14.5 million this weekend. 25 years after its debut. Very solid numbers indeed.

 

Is there any way to compare it against the norm, since it’s so abnormal?

 

Maybe compare it to:
Titanic ( 25th Anniversary) - $ 6.5 mill - 3 day weekend
Avatar ( 2022 re-release) - $ 10.5 mill - 3 day weekend

The 2012 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace made $ 22.4 mill on its weekend release and $ 43 mill total. It came out when 3D was cool though.

Nothing will beat the A New Hope Special Edition - 1997 re- release i guess. It had a $35.9 million OW ( $ 138 mill total domestic).

 

Forgot about the ROTJ re-release last year. Rogue One as well, but i missed that screening because there is no IMAX cinema close to where i live at the moment. There was no re-release for AOTC, but will we get one for ROTS next year?

 

Yeah, and the problem with the comparisons is that the the number of theaters showing them varies so widely. Anyway, nice to see TPM do well. My favorite prequel.

 

Universal has just scheduled a new «event film» by Steven Spielberg for May 15th 2026 - just a week before Mando arrives. Nothing on what the film is about, but it says its based on a original script by David Koepp.