On Friday, tickets for The Mandalorian and Grogu went on sale ahead of its May 22nd launch. Eager Star Wars fans have been anticipating a release of a new theatrical movie for seven years and are finally getting it with the Jon Favreau directed flick, the follow up to Favreau’s hit Disney+ series, The Mandalorian.
Ahead of tickets for The Mandalorian and Grogu, it was reported by the theatrical box office analysis website, Box Office Theory, that projections at the time has The Mandalorian and Grogu looking to debut domestically with $71-85M, a disappointing figure for a Star Wars movie. The numbers presented by the outlet showcased the possibility that The Mandalorian and Grogu could be the lowest opening of any Star Wars movie during the Disney era, possibly coming in lower than Solo: A Star Wars Story which made $84M in its opening weekend domestically and failed to crack $400M globally by the end of its theatrical run.
The projection got a mixed response from fans with some saying it felt about right given the limited buzz around the feature film while others became angry over the projection with outlets and at the notion that the film could underperform. Some fans were quick to point out that The Mandalorian and Grogu, even if it performed like Solo did by the end of its run, that it’s performance ‘wouldn’t be that bad’ due to The Mandalorian and Grogu having a smaller budget than the 2018 film from Ron Howard.
The reported budget for The Mandalorian and Grogu at this time is $166M and that’s just the production budget, it does not include marketing. Most marketing budgets are around fifty percent, some bigger films have even larger marketing budgets, so even if we say fifty percent for The Mandalorian and Grogu, we also have to factor in the cut that theatres take.
Yes, it’s possible that if The Mandalorian and Grogu reaches the box office haul of Solo, it could be somewhat profitable and not a financial loss of over one hundred million dollars, it’s still a disappointing figure for an IP so iconic as Star Wars.
In our previous coverage, we urged fans to not take the projections too seriously until tickets were on sale. Something that has now happened and there are conflicting projections from a couple of box office analysts.
New Projections
According to box office analyst, Luiz Fernando, who has fifty thousand followers on X, The Mandalorian and Grogu is tracking to possibly open to the lower than Solo: A Star Wars Story domestically and added that The Mandalorian and Grogu could need four days to gross what Solo did in its first three days of release.
The Mandalorian and Grogu will have a four day weekend as it opens Memorial Day weekend stateside. Fernando was eager to point out that the projection was based on twenty four hours of The Mandalorian and Grogu tickets being on sale. Fernando added that Star Wars is “fanboy heavy” which usually translates to high pre-sales and less walk up business.
One box office analyst on X, EmpireCityBO, who has over six thousand followers, argued against Fernando’s projection and said that tickets sales on The Mandalorian and Grogu were “fine” after twenty four hours of release and that there was “tons of upside.” The analyst responded to a fellow X user and revealed that they predict the feature film could debut to $100M domestically over the course of the four day weekend.
The picture will become clearer for the opening weekend box office of The Mandalorian and Grogu as the weeks go by, though a large opening weekend does not indicate that a film would have good week-to-week legs and vice versa.
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