The Mandalorian and Grogu opens today, and it is the first Star Wars film in theaters in seven years. That gap matters. An entire generation of kids has only known Star Wars as a streaming thing. This is the movie that is supposed to remind everyone what it feels like to watch a Star Wars story on a big screen with a crowd.
Tracking puts the Memorial Day opening at around $80 million domestic and $160 million globally, against a production budget of $165 million. Those are solid numbers, not spectacular. Thursday previews pulled in $12 million, which lands slightly below Solo at $14.1 million. That comparison is not exactly comforting, given that Solo is the textbook example of a Star Wars movie that underperformed, but the circumstances are different. Solo had a troubled production and zero cultural momentum. This one has Grogu, and Grogu moves merchandise like nothing Disney has produced since Baby Yoda first broke the internet in 2019. Thirteen million units of Grogu merch have been sold. The audience is there. The question is whether they show up opening weekend or wait.
Pedro Pascal returns as Din Djarin, which is the foundation this whole thing rests on. Pascal has become one of those actors who elevates everything he touches, and his chemistry with a puppet remains one of the more unlikely magic tricks in modern blockbuster filmmaking. The new additions are significant. Sigourney Weaver joins the cast, and Jeremy Allen White is in there too. Ludwig Goransson scores the film, which should surprise nobody given how essential his music has been to the show from day one.
Critics are sitting at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, which puts it in that uncomfortable middle zone where it is not bad enough to be a story and not good enough to generate the kind of word of mouth that drives a second weekend. Jon Favreau wrote and produced, and his instincts with this material have been reliable if not always ambitious. He understands what people want from this corner of Star Wars. Whether that is enough to justify a theatrical release instead of another season on Disney Plus is the real debate.
Disney has been leaning hard into Grogu as the emotional hook, and honestly, it is a smart play. The little guy is the reason most people watched the show in the first place, and putting him on a 40 foot screen is going to hit different than watching on a laptop.
If your friend group watches Star Wars together, this is the one worth seeing in theaters. Seven years is a long time to wait. Even if the movie is just good, the experience of being back in that world on a big screen counts for something.
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