5 Reasons The Mandalorian & Grogu Could Bomb at the Box Office
The Mandalorian & Grogu hits theaters in less than a month, this is the first Star Wars movie in seven years. On paper, there should be a lot of excitement going into this film and making a ton of money. But, I don’t feel the excitement for The Mandalorian & Grogu that there should be given it’s the first Star Wars film in seven years. Why is that? So here’s my reasons as to why I think The Mandalorian & Grogu will bomb.
- REASON #1: Star Wars Has Lost Faith with Audiences:During the 2010s, Star Wars was such an exciting property and franchise. We got The Force Awakens that brought life back into Star Wars, and it’s a film that made over $2 billion and was such a big cultural event. Rogue One comes out the following year, it’s another movie that makes over $1 billion. After that film, there’s been a decline in the popularity and the critical reception to the Star Wars movies. Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker really polarized audiences. The start of Disney+ and the amount of disappointing shows they’ve put out have continued to burn bridges with audiences. They made a Kenobi tv show with Ewan McGregor as the vast majority of Star Wars fans were very disappointed by it, myself included. So no matter what the Star Wars movie was going to be, the film was likely going to bomb and lose money. The Star Wars fandom isn’t there anymore like it was in 2015 when The Force Awakens came out. The Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker really polarized audiences, so much so that people still don’t forgive what those movies did to the lore and the characters. They put out Star Wars: Skeleton Crew in late 2024, and it got positive reviews but because the fandom was so polarized and people were throwing in the towel, the viewership for the show wasn’t because nobody cared.
- REASON #2: The Mandalorian’s 3rd Season Wasn’t Great: The Mandalorian for seasons one and two got very positive reviews. If we’re judging The Mandalorian purely based on those seasons, people’s thoughts and opinions on the show would be much higher. Between the one-two punch of The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian season 3, the whole fandom for the Jon Favreau side of Star Wars was completely gone. The Mandalorian season 2 had such a great finale with completing Mando’s character arc, and sending Grogu to go train with Luke. The Book of Boba Fett immediately undoes that ending and Grogu is back for the third season of The Mandalorian. There’s no episode in The Mandalorian where they’re actually separated so it makes the whole journey of the first two seasons feel meaningless. Season three of The Mandalorian wasn’t great and didn’t capture the magic of the first two. Most everybody feels it as a giant step down and it ended the show on a sour note for fans. When the show ends on a low point, it means that there’s no excitement for the next adventure because audiences don’t trust that creative team anymore. Had this movie come out in between season two and season three and it was building off of the excitement of season two, I think the film’s box office would be much different.
- REASON #3: Homework is Required for Audiences: One of the big concerns I’ve had in relation to The Mandalorian & Grogu is similar concerns to what we’ve experienced with several of the recent MCU films. I think you look at The Marvels and Thunderbolts* and notice that one of the big reasons as to why those films underperformed was because there was homework required for the audiences. For The Marvels, audiences need to watch WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, and Secret Invasion in order to understand the plot of the film. That’s a lot of homework that the people who haven’t kept up with everything Marvel need to do. Thunderbolts* Likewise, you had to watch multiple movies and tv shows just to understand who these characters are. The Mandalorian & Grogu, is in a similar situation where it’s a continuation of a tv show so therefore it’s easy to assume that the previous three seasons are homework to understand this movie. I haven’t seen the film, maybe the show isn’t homework at all. But the average joe sees this movie coming out and immediately loses interest because they have to do homework in order to understand this movie. Some people could argue that it might not be as big of an issue, because The Mandalorian was far more popular then any of the MCU shows required as homework. There’s some truth to that, The Mandalorian as a show was much more popular. But the numbers that are required to make a successful show aren’t the same numbers you need to make a profitable film. Let’s say a combined 15 million watched the three seasons of The Mandalorian, and you multiply that by the cost of the average movie ticket which from the number I see is about $14. If every single person that watched every single episode of The Mandalorian bought a ticket to this film, based on my math it would only make $210 million. Now I do think the film is going to make significantly more than that. But you get the point I’m trying to make, normal joes need to show up and buy a ticket to this film even if they haven’t a single episode of the show and I don’t know how many people are going to be doing that.
- REASON #4: Not-so-good Marketing: This is another reason why The Mandalorian & Grogu’s box office likely won’t be great. The trailers for the film thus far haven’t been great and haven’t hooked people as to what makes this movie worth seeing. The first trailer they put out was back in September and Star Wars weren’t pleased with this trailer. It got a lot of discussion on the internet but all in a negative way and confirmed people’s fears and skepticism for this film. They put out such a weird trailer during the Super Bowl that felt more like a beer commercial than actual good marketing for this film that got people excited. Since then they’ve released two more trailers that showcase more of what this film is about. I think the two later trailers are significantly better than the first one, but they’re still not great. It’s still not convincing enough as to why this is a movie, not just season four of the show. I think that’s the biggest problem with the marketing, it all feels very subdued and not big and flashy. I bet you there are multiple people out there that see the trailer think that it’s just season four of the show and don’t realize that it’s a theatrically released film. The trailers don’t make the film feel very cinematic, it makes them feel more smaller scale on the size of the tv show. All around, the marketing really needed to be great in order to build excitement for the film and convince the skeptics why they should go see this film. Thus far, I don’t feel like the marketing has done.
- REASON #5: Ticket Inflation: This is a problem with so many movies that are predicted to bomb, is that the ticket prices continue going up. I work at a movie theater and most tickets cost about $13 for just one ticket. That’s not counting any snacks or drinks they want to buy. With ticket prices continuing to go up, it means that audiences are having to be more selective about which movies they go and see because they can afford seeing one or two movies a month. While May isn’t a super crowded month, you have The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Mortal Kombat II, two movies that have more excitement going into them and I think are going to make more money then this film. If people go on a date night to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2 and/or Mortal Kombat II, then by the time The Mandalorian & Grogu release Memorial Day weekend, they can’t afford it. Summer 2026 is going to be a busy season for movies because from June 5th to July 31st we have multiple high profile films releasing almost every week. I think that’s going to be an issue for a few of those movies.
Comments