Mandalorian And Grogu’s Modest Opening Weekend Isn’t As Bad As It Seems
The first Star Wars film in years makes history for better and worse.
When Solo: A Star Wars Story grossed a meager $100 million in its opening weekend in theaters, it was a new low for a franchise that once seemed too big to fail. With a budget of $275 million, it was relatively cheaper than its contemporaries — like The Force Awakens, which reportedly cost somewhere in the ballpark of $500 million to produce. But unlike the other films of Star Wars’ Disney era, Solo failed to gross $1 billion worldwide, a feat that was becoming commonplace otherwise.
Solo’s ultimate box office total was nothing to sneeze at, but it still came to represent everything Star Wars has to avoid if it wants to survive. The franchise pulled the plug on big-screen storytelling partly because of its perceived failure — and as The Mandalorian and Grogu brings Star Wars back to cinemas for the first time in seven years, the shadow of Solo looms uncomfortably large.
On one hand, it’s not exactly fair to put so much expectation on such an abnormal movie: two TV characters should not be responsible for the fate of a blockbuster, and the critical reception to The Mandalorian and Grogu speaks a bit to that misstep. Financially, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his little green son haven’t exactly surpassed expectations, either... but their opening-weekend tally isn’t quite the red flag that Solo’s was, and that’s for one surprising reason.
The Mandalorian and Grogu didn’t break any box office records, but its low budget saved it.
The Mandalorian and Grogu topped the Memorial Day weekend box office, taking in around $100 million domestically in its four-day opening. That’s just a bit less than Solo’s first weekend results: the standalone spinoff grossed roughly $103 million on its premiere weekend. Does that mean The Mandalorian and Grogu is poised for a similarly disappointing fate? Not exactly — and that’s because the latest Star Wars film is also the cheapest of the Disney era. With a budget of roughly $166 million, it doesn’t have to make nearly as much as Solo to recoup its cost. It technically already has, if you factor in the film’s global gross, which brings its total to $163 million.
Given the cost of marketing the film, The Mandalorian and Grogu will need a bit more cash to be considered an outright success. Still, the franchise’s comeback is at least on the right track: it might not break the records set by films like Rogue One and The Last Jedi, but its eventual box office total, however modest, should set future Star Wars movies up for success.
