{"id":500293,"date":"2026-05-24T10:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/500293\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T10:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:40:12","slug":"box-office-mandalorian-and-grogu-eyes-franchise-low-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/500293\/","title":{"rendered":"Box Office: ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Eyes Franchise-Low Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIs the Force with The Mandalorian and Grogu<\/a>, or against it?<\/p>\n

\n\tJudging by early grosses alone, Jon Favreau<\/a>\u2018s feature film adaptation of his hit Disney+ series is at risk of scoring the lowest box office<\/a> opening of any title in the storied Star Wars franchise since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, Mandalorian and Grogu boasts an 89 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes \u2014 the best of any Star Wars film since Disney took over \u2014 and equally strong exit score on PostTrak, especially among youngsters. Disney insiders believe Mando could become the most family-driven film of any title in the iconic series, at least in modern times.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, Mando topped the domestic box office chart with a series-low $33 million from 4,300 theaters, behind the $35.4 million earned by the ill-fated Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/a> on its opening day in 2018, not adjusted for inflation. But the long Memorial Day weekend is far from over. The big wild card is walk-up business on Saturday and Sunday. That is where families, who are notoriously hard to track, will come into play.<\/p>\n

\n\tKids, especially boys under the age of 13, are going nuts for the film, giving it an A CinemaScore, and 5\/5 stars on exit polling service PostTrak. General audiences bestowed the film with an A- CinemaScore and a stellar 4\/5 stars. Reviewers aren\u2019t as enthusiastic, although the critics\u2019 score on Rotten Tomatoes had risen several points by Friday morning to 64 percent before dropping to 62 percent. (Solo fared better with critics at 69 percent, but was slapped with a dreadful 63 percent audience score.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new tentpole, which marks the first Star Wars film to play in theaters in seven years, continues the story of The Mandalorian, Favreau\u2019s record-breaking series that helped launch Disney+ and introduced the world to Baby Yoda (Grogu), who became a beacon of hope just before the pandemic struck and a merchandising breadwinner worth north of $1 billion.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeading into the weekend, tracking services showed Mandalorian and Grogu opening to roughly $82 million at the domestic box office for the four days, while some exhibitors saw it coming in as high as $95 million or as low as $70 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tBy Saturday morning, Disney insiders said the movie was on course to earn a better-than-expected $92 million to $96 million for the four-day holiday weekend, including somewhere in the $77 million range for the three days. Rival studios were more bullish than Disney in predicting a four-day domestic opening of $95 million to $100 million for Mandalorian. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s still behind Solo, however, which posted a four-day domestic opening of $103 million on its way to topping out at less than $400 million globally in a low point for the franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney continues to point out that Mando began its life on the small screen, so it is an entirely different proposition from previous titles in the Star Wars pantheon, and introduces new characters not tied to the saga movies or stand-alone features. And if recent audience hits, including Project Hail Mary<\/a>, are any indication, it could have long legs. The studio also notes that box office is just one slice of the larger revenue pie a theatrical release will generate for the entire Star Wars franchise, including toy sales or increased Disney+ viewership.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie sees Pedro Pascal<\/a> return as\u00a0Mandalorian, a bounty hunter also known as Din Djarin, who is charged with protecting Grogu. Favreau directed from a script he wrote with Noah Kloor and Dave Filoni, who earlier this year, was\u00a0upped<\/a> to oversee\u00a0the creative direction of Lucasfilm as president and chief creative officer following Kathleen Kennedy\u2019s departure (he was a George Lucas prot\u00e9g\u00e9).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the film, the Mandalorian is tasked by Sigourney Weaver\u2019s Colonel Ward of the New Republic to rescue Rotta the Hutt, voiced by Jeremy Allen White. Martin Scorsese also voices a memorable, four-armed food stand chef.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other big headline of the Memorial Day weekend is the runaway horror hit<\/a> Obsession<\/a>, directed by Curry Barker<\/a> of YouTube fame. The film<\/a>, from Focus Features and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, looks to come in No. 2 in its sophomore outing <\/a>with $19.9 million, a rare 16 percent increase over its opening weekend<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is the Force with The Mandalorian and Grogu, or against it? Judging by early grosses alone, Jon Favreau\u2018s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[9867,31494,18,117,19,17,80588,327,34433,12126,215690,187017],"class_list":["post-500293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-box-office","tag-curry-barker","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jon-favreau","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-pedro-pascal","tag-solo-a-star-wars-story","tag-star-warsu00a0the-mandalorian-grogu"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116629131981353766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}