The Mandalorian and Grogu is tracking to open in the $80 million range at the domestic box office over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, a start that would put Disneyplus' first big-screen Star Wars release since COVID squarely in line with expectations from Lucasfilm and Disney.
The Jon Favreau-directed film marks the theatrical continuation of The Mandalorian, the streaming series that debuted on Disney+ in 2019 and later lost momentum after its third season. Favreau directed the movie from a script he co-wrote with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, while Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White also star.
The number matters because it would land close to last year's Memorial Day tentpole, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, which debuted to $79 million, and well below the heights of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which opened to $177.3 million in 2019. But it would also compare favorably with Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to $84 million domestically over the three-day Memorial Day weekend in 2018 and $104 million over four days.
Lucasfilm plans to turn up the volume on May the 4th with a bigger marketing push and a 25-minute preview of The Mandalorian and Grogu in select Imax theaters around the world. The campaign comes as Dave Filoni has been elevated to oversee Lucasfilm's creative direction as president and chief creative officer following Kathleen Kennedy's departure earlier this year, a shift that makes this launch an early test of the studio's next phase.
The film's move from streaming to theaters was not a given; it was the answer after The Mandalorian cooled in its third season. If the current tracking holds, Lucasfilm will get what it wanted most: a solid Memorial Day opening that shows the franchise still has box-office muscle, even if it no longer opens at the extraordinary heights it once did.
