The next Star Wars film to hit theatres is The Mandalorian and Grogu from director Jon Favreau, the creator of the hit Disney+ series, The Mandalorian. The Mandalorian and Grogu is set to be the first Star Wars film to release in theatres since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker and currently sports a release date of May 22nd, 2026.
Filming on the movie was first reported to begin in mid-June. I, Collider and other outlets reported a handful of months ago that The Mandalorian and Grogu was due to start filming in June and I also shared that production was due to wrap in October. One of the actors that plays Din Djarin, Brendan Wayne, also confirmed the June start. Filming was seemingly delayed and there’s been some confusion as to whether or not The Mandalorian and Grogu has started filming in recent weeks. Over the last couple of days I checked in with sources who told me that filming on the highly anticipated flick has not yet officially started despite rumours claiming otherwise.
At the time one source reiterated that filming had not started, but that pre-production and set builds were well underway. Coincidentally on the same night, MakingStarWars ventured to one of the locations that was used for multiple Star Wars live-action series including The Mandalorian, Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett which is also planned to be used again for The Mandalorian and Grogu.
MakingStarWars took to X to share images of what he and saw at the location and added that it appears as if the production is building a turret, a base or homes of some kind.
I have not been told a specific window as to when The Mandalorian and Grogu is now slated to begin filming, but if we’re going to look at the past California based Star Wars TV productions, we might be able to work out roughly when filming could start.
In the past, at the location MakingStarWars got images of sets being built, filming would usually take place around four weeks from when the sets at the location started being built. For example, I first got pictures of an Ahsoka set being built at the location three weeks before filming officially started. I released the images nine days after they were snapped and I was informed of sets being built at the location over a week before having somebody venture to the location to capture the images, so that gives us roughly a month before filming commenced on May 9th, 2022. Additionally on the third season of The Mandalorian, set building on the series started at the location started in mid-September and filming officially began at the very of the month or early October.
If we‘re looking at the past to get a rough idea as to when filming could begin, it would appear that it could begin within the next month.
MakingStarWars was the first to share that Disney and Lucasfilm were considering re-shaping the fourth season of The Mandalorian into a theatrical film last summer. At the time MSW shared that the idea was merely under consideration and was due to the delays in production on the fourth season of the Disney+ due to writers and actors strikes going on at the time and its impact on development of other planned Star Wars films.
In February of this year, Disney and Lucasfilm officially announced that a new movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, would lead their theatrical slate which includes films from Sharmeen-Obaid Chinoy (Ms. Marvel), James Mangold (Logan) and Dave Filoni (Ahsoka). The Mandalorian and Grogu is slated to release on May 22nd, 2026.
