The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $81.9 million over Friday through Sunday, a solid start on paper that still landed below the benchmark set by Solo seven years ago. Jon Favreau unveiled the numbers during the Walt Disney Studios presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on April 16.
The comparison is not flattering for a franchise that once looked untouchable. Solo opened with $84.4 million in 2018, which is about $112 million in today’s dollars, meaning the new film finished roughly $30 million behind that inflation-adjusted mark. Over Memorial Day weekend, Solo took in $103 million, or $139 million today, while The Mandalorian and Grogu was expected to make $102 million this year, leaving it about $37 million back after inflation adjustment.
That matters because Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and kept Kathleen Kennedy in charge, betting the Star Wars name could keep generating enormous theatrical business. The Force Awakens, released in 2015, was a gigantic hit and briefly reset expectations for the series. But each film after it drew fewer ticket sales and smaller audiences than the one before, The Rise of Skywalker was widely panned by audiences and many critics, and The Acolyte was canceled after one season for low viewership.
Solo’s flop was especially damaging. It ended plans for a future trilogy built around the adventures of a young Han Solo, even after Rogue One and Andor were described as seeming successes. The Mandalorian followed a different path: its early popularity set in motion plans for a feature film, although later seasons lost much of that momentum. The new opening suggests that the character still has an audience, but not one large enough to restore Star Wars to its former box-office force on nostalgia alone.
The arithmetic also explains why the studio will be watching the final total closely. The film’s production budget was estimated at roughly $166 million, marketing added at least $100 million more, and that puts the movie near $266 million before it has meaningfully earned a profit. Because studios and theaters split revenue 50/50, the movie likely has to reach a much higher total than its opening suggests before it turns the corner. For a franchise that once made everything look easy, that is the real story in the office numbers.
Disney is still testing whether a familiar name can carry a film the way it once did. The first weekend says the audience has not disappeared. It also says the ceiling is lower than the studio wanted to believe.
