On Thursday afternoon at AMC Georgetown, a half-full crowd watched the earliest showing of “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” available to the public, the latest film within the Star Wars universe.
In years past, opening-day tickets for a new Star Wars release were a hot commodity. Entire theaters sold out months before the release of 2015’s “The Force Awakens‚” then the first live-action Star Wars film to hit theaters in a decade. As of Friday afternoon, there were still tickets available for the 8:15 p.m. showing on the same AMC’s Imax screen.
Outside the theater, Joseph Marfia and his young son Mateo held popcorn, excited for their upcoming showing. “It’s [his] first time seeing a Star Wars movie in theaters,” said the Washington-based father. “I’m just excited to share that experience with him.”
While the film’s adorable green co-star seems tailor-made for families, early tracking for “Mando and Grogu” reflects a lack of excitement from general audiences. The film is set to make between $80 and $100 million at the domestic box office across the four-day holiday weekend. Assuming ticket sales remain in that range, it will be the least successful opening of the Disney Star Wars era. The film’s budget is reported to be around $165 million.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu” serves as a series finale of sorts following three television seasons of “The Mandalorian.” The film’s plot centers firmly on its title characters, never broadening its scope to capture a galaxy-wide mood or conflict. Typically, the Star Wars franchise is described as a “space opera,” featuring high- and low-status characters alongside one another; important moral and ethical dilemmas; and a mix of romance, action, melodrama and science fiction. Compared to the storytelling goals of past installments, this weekend’s release feels small and disposable. It doesn’t help that the film was reportedly shot entirely in California, rather than the exotic locations past movies have featured.
The first wave of reviews has been mixed. In his Variety critique, Owen Gleiberman equated the film to “a couple of likable, diverting, semi-forgettable episodes jammed together, albeit with the lavishly scaled action of a big-budget movie adventure.” The movie “neglects to tell a meaningful tale worth anyone’s time,” added SlashFilm. Gizmodo called it “a throwaway adventure in the lives of these characters.”
At the time of writing, the film sits at 63 percent on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, meaning a little more than half of critics viewed it generally positively. It’s the second-lowest critic’s rating of the Disney Star Wars era, just above the franchise’s last outing, “The Rise of Skywalker.”
“It feels like a movie that hasn’t really justified itself,” said Justin Paul, who uses his first and middle name professionally and covers Star Wars on his popular YouTube channel EckhartsLadder.
While Paul plans to take his 7-year-old — his son’s first trip to the movie theater — he says that if he were single, “I don’t think the movie would be moving the needle for me very much.”
Paul, who is in his mid-30s, launched EckhartsLadder in the lead-up to “The Last Jedi.” That movie, the middle chapter in Disney’s “Sequel Trilogy,” set off a social media firestorm that remains a controversial topic all over the internet nine years later. Disney’s two follow-up films to “Last Jedi,” 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” were both relative disappointments at the box office.
There has now been a seven-year gap between “The Rise of Skywalker” and this summer’s release. In the interim — and partially due to a global pandemic — Disney pivoted the entirety of its Star Wars output to streaming.
When Disney+ launched in 2019, a big part of the draw was its television shows and miniseries centered on the company’s intellectual property behemoths. Waiting for new subscribers on launch day was the first episode of “The Mandalorian,” a Star Wars television show helmed by Jon Favreau. Starring Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin (a.k.a. the titular character) and the small green alien Grogu, colloquially referred to as “Baby Yoda,” the show launched a cavalcade of series in the Star Wars universe, filling in the cracks between films. Across animation and live action, Disney has now released 17 seasons of Star Wars television, many taking place in the “Mando-verse,” a period in the canonical timeline immediately following the events of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.”
This weekend’s release plays like a culmination of all those seasons of television. The status quo of our lovable heroes does not change drastically, a feature in great television writing but a bug for something released in theaters. Still, some fans are ecstatic to see the franchise back on the big screen.
Aidan Sullivan runs the Instagram account unnofficial.starwars, an independent source for Star Wars news, rumors, memes and fun facts. Since 2018, he’s seen it as a community for Star Wars fans like himself.
Sullivan’s excitement level is “through the roof” for the new release, which he said is “opening up a whole new gateway of other movies” now that the Skywalker saga has ended. He added that, in terms of audience engagement, “people are flocking towards” his content around “Mando and Grogu.”
Sullivan, who also runs an account focused on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, would like to see both franchises refocus on theatrical releases. “Being under the ‘House of Mouse’ and the same Disney umbrella, they are pushing the same thing on both.”
Other fans feel that “The Mandalorian” had petered out before making the leap to the big screen, including Austin Vaught, who runs the YouTube account Larry The Stormtrooper, which features comedic sketch animations of Star Wars characters and settings.
He said a drop in quality and excitement around the final third season of “The Mandalorian” possibly contributed to the hesitation people are feeling toward this new release. “It definitely didn’t have as much hype.”
Back outside the theater, Loyola University Maryland student Eiden Smith-Moulden tracked a similar relationship to the show’s three-season arc: “Season 1 was good, Season 2 was amazing … and Season 3 was slow but had a pretty cohesive story,” he said. A fan of the show and the film’s supporting addition of Sigourney Weaver, he made sure to get to an early showing of the film to purchase a collectible AT-AT popcorn bucket. Smith-Moulden’s mother, Elena, had a slightly different reason for attending: “I’m here because I love Grogu.”
Just before the film started, a non-trailer advertisement played, centered on Disney parks and cruises. It showcased the character interactions and beautiful locations that the company’s parks division promises. Earlier this year, Disney named Josh D’Amaro as CEO, succeeding Bob Iger. D’Amaro’s prior role was overseeing Disney’s parks and cruises. On Friday, the Mandalorian and Grogu were added to the theme park’s Millennium Falcon ride.
As for what comes next for Star Wars, little has been set in beskar. The second season of “Ahsoka,” a Rosario Dawson-led spin-off of “The Mandalorian” featuring a character who first debuted in animation, will release in early 2027, and new seasons of two animated shows, “Maul – Shadow Lord” and “Star Wars: Visions,” are also in production.
The Shawn Levy-helmed feature “Star Wars: Starfighter” is set for this time next year and stars Ryan Gosling, whose “Project Hail Mary” was a sci-fi box-office hit. Fans are hopeful that the film will have a better shot at returning the franchise to its former glory.
Since purchasing Lucasfilm in 2012, and with it the IP rights to Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Willow, Disney has made a habit of announcing and then canceling new theatrical projects. Just before the release of “Last Jedi,” the company announced a trilogy of features from the film’s writer-director Rian Johnson — then quietly moved past them. A stand-alone film from Marvel super-producer Kevin Feige was reported to be in the works but, “nothing ever got developed,” according to former president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy. In 2018, “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were announced to be leading a trilogy of films focused on the origins of the Jedi, but that never came to fruition either.
“A lot of it comes down to chasing trends and making short-term decisions which end up hurting the franchise,” Paul said of some of Disney’s moves. “I wonder whether this film is going to be the next example of that.”
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