We are now less than three months away from the release of the first new theatrically released Star Wass film in seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu, the follow-up feature film directed and written by Jon Favreau to the hit Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, which Favreau created.
The Mandalorian and Grogu will release first in French theatres on May 20th. This is ahead of the release in regions such as the USA and UK on May 22nd. According to a new rumour, the film might be getting a surprise premiere a few days before the initial French and Swedish release on May 20th.
According to Paris Match, (via machine translation) there are rumours and a possibility that the Jon Favreau directed flick could be shown out of competition at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, which is due to run from May 13th until May 23rd.
A Case For This Premiere
If the rumour becomes a reality, it won’t be the first time a Star Wars movie has been shown during the Festival, with the most recent being the Ron Howard directed Solo: A Star Wars Story debuting at the Cannes Film Festival eight years ago out of competition.
In addition to Solo, and ahead of the Disney Star Wars era, both Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith in 2002 and 2005 also played at Cannes out of competition.
Reviews for Solo were mostly favourable following the event, but the most recent Lucasfilm endeavour at Cannes, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), was not met with glowing reviews coming out of the film festival and disappointing to mixed word of mouth following the event was attached to the film until its release.
Given the franchises history with the film festival and modern day Lucasfilm having two releases play their within the past eight years, it does feel reasonable that The Mandalorian and Grogu could feature out of competition. Whether this is a smart move or not will remain to be seen, though if the film is not up to the standards expected by critics and fan alike, those unfavourable reviews and responses will follow the film no matter when and where it is shown to the masses.
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