While The Mandalorian and Grogu has the benefit of a lower budget than most Star Wars movies ($165 million) and high audience scores (the highest in Disney-era Star Wars, in fact), that has not translated into a return to form for the series at the box office, where 4 out of 5 of the previous Disney movies made a billion dollars or more.
Instead, the comparisons are with Solo, lauded as the first true Star Wars flop, earning, at best, 40% of its compatriots with a $392 million haul. While The Mandalorian and Grogu was about even with Solo (though a bit under) to start, this weekend, things may go very badly for it indeed.
The Mandalorian and Grogu is about to be dominated in its second weekend by Backrooms, the $5 million horror film that originated on YouTube and is being helmed by its YouTuber, Kane Parsons. The movie is now forecast to make an eye-popping $75-80 million or more, around what The Mandalorian and Grogu made its first weekend.
Not only that, but Obsession, the other horror movie directed by a YouTuber, is hitting unprecedented milestones, its box office take increasing 39% between its first and second weekends. There are predictions it could rise again, and there is now a significant risk that The Mandalorian and Grogu could take third place at the domestic box office behind two new IP films with a budget of $6 million combined. Solo dropped to $29 million its second weekend, but that was it still winning the box office, compared to doing battle with films like these here.
Things are not better looking ahead, either. Many of The Mandalorian and Grogu’s coveted IMAX screens are being taken over by Masters of the Universe next weekend, the so-far praised adaptation of the cartoon series. So it will go up against that, the second, likely big week of Backrooms and whatever Obsession is doing by then.
The Mandalorian and Grogu has already passed its production budget, but including marketing and other factors, not so much. But it has more post-opening-weekend complications than Solo did, between two enormously overperforming horror films and another blockbuster arriving soon. At $176 million globally right now, it is possible, if not likely, that Solo’s $392 million could be out of reach.
What went wrong here? It does not seem to be a great mystery, releasing a film that is effectively the fourth season of a show that began in 2019 and has not been seen since a lackluster third season in 2023. Next, Disney will have to rely on Ryan Gosling’s charm to make Star Wars: Starfighter a hit, which, as far as we know, will feature no original trilogy characters or storylines as a draw. That may be good creatively, but we’ll see how it works at the box office.
The Mandalorian and Grogu seems like a bad idea that ran into bad luck. Fortunately, the movie itself is pretty good, but that has not proven to be enough.
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