Disney have confirmed what we already knew: Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu bombed in cinemas. From box office numbers to telltale signs in the post-theatrical run campaign, this film has been a huge miss for Lucasfilm and Disney.
The Walt Disney Company published a letter so shareholders and held the quarterly earnings call with investors on Wednesday. This was the first time they had to admit defeat and come clean.
In that public letter to investors, Disney said that “While audience scores for both Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu and fiscal Q4’s live action Moana have been strong, both films underperformed our box office expectations. Even so, these franchise investments contributed to value creation beyond their theatrical releases.”
During the call, the recently appointed CEO Josh D’Amaro revealed that The Mandalorian and Grogu fell below their expected box office figures. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, D’Amaro said “Even when our franchise films don’t meet our box office expectations, as with The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live-action Moana, investments in these core properties fuel other parts of our company.”
The CEO expanded on the latter sentence. He said that the Jon Favreau-directed flick “drove healthy growth in retail sales for the Star Wars franchise and drew guests to the updated Millennium Falcon attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and led to significant engagement in gaming as well.” Every theatrical Star Wars release brings players to Star Wars games or sells more merch. That’s nothing new. We reported back in May that Battlefront 2 for example had reached incredible player count numbers and download figures.
The film has now earned around $345m at the box office from a reported combined production and marketing budget of $300m. When you take into account the cut cinemas take, this film has not made money from tickets alone. Disney has had to rely on existing fans buying previously released games and new merch.
The Mandalorian and Grogu releases on disc in just a few weeks time. You can pre-order it here whilst stocks last. (Note: using the pre-order link for the film helps support this website by earning us a small amount of commission. Thank you for your support!)
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