Excerpt from “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu”.
“Star Wars” returns to the big screen this weekend for the first time in seven years, riding the trail of a Mandalorian’s jetpack.
Disney “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” generated $12 million in advance sales Thursday night, the lowest advance ticket collection in franchise history, according to Comscore data. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was the previous low bar, with $14.1 million in pre-show tickets in 2018.
Box office analysts expect the film, based on the hit Disney+ series “The Mandalorian,” to generate about $80 million for its three-day opening weekend and about $95 million for the four-day Memorial Day weekend. Some less conservative experts have estimated that the three-day haul could cost $95 million and that the holiday weekend could bring in $115 million.
This would be one of the smallest openings to a Star Wars film in modern cinema history. “Solo” raked in $84.4 million when it opened eight years ago. Since 2015, only “Solo” has opened to less than $100 million domestically, according to Comscore data.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will likely benefit from the TV show’s popularity, the long Memorial Day weekend and limited competition from new titles, especially on high-end large-format screens.
It will also serve as a stress test for future Star Wars theatrical releases, against a backdrop of lackluster cinema for Star Wars and Marvel, the flagship franchises that helped Disney dominate the global box office in the 2010s. The studio plans “Starfighter” to arrive in theaters in 2027 starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy.
New Star Wars titles have been absent from theaters since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” The final film in the Skywalker saga and the third film in what is now known as the sequel trilogy grossed more than $1 billion but was widely criticized by critics and fans. Disney and its studio Lucasfilm have suspended theatrical productions in favor of reinstating the franchise on the Disney+ streaming service.
“The Mandalorian,” which premiered just a month before “The Rise of Skywalker,” was a runaway success for the company and inspired a number of live-action Star Wars projects to get a series instead of a theatrical version. These include “Andor”, “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, “Ahsoka”, “Skeleton Crew”, “The Acolyte” and “The Book of Boba Fett”.
Lucasfilm tapped director Jon Favreau — who worked alongside new studio head Dave Filoni to bring “The Mandalorian” to Disney+ — to direct “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” The feature film had a slightly lower budget than the classic Star Wars films, with an estimated production cost of around $165 million. Other Star Wars projects released theatrically in the previous decade had production budgets of $250 million or more, according to data from The Numbers.
This means that “The Mandalorian and Grogu” has a lower breakeven point than previous titles in the franchise. Of course, these production budgets do not include marketing expenses.
For parent company Disney, it’s not just about the box office numbers. The film benefits from a strong consumer product launch tied to its release.
The Star Wars franchise has always been a strong retail seller, even without a theatrical release. So, having new products in a variety of categories and brands could be a big boon for the company, especially after the character Grogu, known as “Baby Yoda,” became a runaway hit with fans.
Notably, after the 2015 release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, the first of Lucasfilm’s latest Star Wars trilogy, Hasbro Star Wars merchandise sales alone have reached nearly $500 million.
Disney is already making connections at its theme parks, including specialty merchandise and a redesign of its Smugglers Run ride featuring Grogu.