It’s almost becoming repetitive at this point. A Star Wars-related property has disappointed relative to pre-release expectations.
Seven years after the release of “The Rise of Skywalker,” Disney and Lucasfilm hoped that they could relaunch the all-important franchise with “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” And in doing so, once again revealed that they understand very little about the audience they’re trying to serve.
When “The Force Awakens” hit theaters under the leadership of then-Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, it was a tremendous financial success. While hardly reinventing the wheel creatively, it at least provided a solid foundation for the franchise to build from. But the ensuing releases in the “main” trilogy within the Star Wars universe saw progressively diminishing returns as it became clear the studio had no cohesive plan or sense of what audiences love, or loved, about the series.
Classic heroes like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo were undermined at every opportunity. “The Last Jedi” incorporated a bizarre class and political storyline that had little relevance to the plot within that individual movie, and was swiftly discarded as a plot within the trilogy afterward. The “plan,” such as it was, was to make audiences care about the leads simply because they existed. It didn’t work.
DISNEY’S FIRST ‘STAR WARS’ MOVIE IN SEVEN YEARS IS TRACKING TO BE YET ANOTHER MASSIVE DISAPPOINTMENT
Fast forward to 2026, and Disney’s apparent hope for the Star Wars series was that their streaming service would provide a building block for theatrical releases. “The Mandalorian” was popular in its first season as a novel, “western” style episodic adventure. That momentum quickly fizzled, but with few other options, they rushed a cobbled-together story into theaters anyway.
Not only has it failed, the latest box office returns show how far Disney and Lucasfilm have to go to regain audiences’ trust.
The opening weekend of “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” despite coming around the long Memorial Day holiday, was underwhelming at just $80 million. Then, the film saw a catastrophic 70% drop in its second weekend in theaters to $24.4 million.
Well, the news didn’t get any better this past weekend. If anything, it got worse. Sunday’s estimate is that “Mandalorian” will bring in around $10 million or just under, all but cementing the end of its run in the domestic theatrical box office. And leading to catastrophic financial losses for Disney.
With its production budget and marketing costs factored in, “The Mandalorian” needed to bring in $450-500 million to break even. And as its box office continues to dwindle, it currently sits at just $293 million globally. Thanks in large part to the woeful $155 million total from U.S. theaters.
The picture gets much worse when comparing against previous Star Wars films and adjusting for inflation. Here’s the list of recent releases in the franchise, and where “Mandalorian” ranks at the domestic box office.
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“Solo” was viewed as such a flop that it ended plans for a standalone trilogy focused on Han Solo. “Mandalorian” is tracking to come up $70-80 million below it, adjusted for inflation. There’s no other way to put it, that’s a failure.
“Mandalorian” might not have been “political,” or specifically divisive, though of course, star Pedro Pascal has worked hard to be divisive on his own. It’s that the cumulative effect of their choices has grown over the years to the point where audiences simply don’t care anymore.
Disney and the Kathleen Kennedy version of Lucasfilm managed to lose the trust of viewers despite having ownership of the most successful and popular film franchise in Hollywood history. Books will be written about this. Film school classes will be taught about this. And it was completely avoidable, had they simply focused on quality, story, plot and character growth instead of fulfilling every stereotype imaginable. Now they stand to lose $100+ million on a Star Wars movie. You have to hand it to them, it’s impressive, if nothing else.
