Dear Normal People: Prepare yourselves to enjoy more glorious humiliation for the Disney Grooming Syndicate with the news that a $750,000 horror movie just snatched the box office crown right off The Mandalorian and Grogu’s poorly-CGI’d head.
On Wednesday, this low-budget horror movie grossed $5.6 million, while The Mandalorian and Grogu grossed just $4.2 million.
And you still question whether or not there’s a God?
Pay special attention to this next fact. This next fact is even more humiliating for Disney…
This $750,000 horror movie is called Obsession, and it was released wide — and this is amazing — a week earlier than The Mandalorian and Grogu, on May 15.
The Mandalorian and Grogu was released wide on May 22.
So, a movie that should’ve run out of steam by now, a movie that’s been in wide release for a week longer, is beating a Star Wars movie.
But that’s not all…
The Mandalorian and Grogu is currently playing in 4,300 theaters.
Obsession is playing in only 2,655 theaters.
In summations: despite the massive advantage of being released a week later, playing in about 1600 more theaters, having a production budget about 150 times larger, and a promotion budget that was likely 100 times larger, Disney still lost … Star Wars still lost … Kathleen Kennedy still lost.
Glorious.
Now get ready for the tee hee…
Back in 2018, Disney’s box office flop, Solo: A Star Wars Story, opened on the same Memorial Day weekend as The Mandalorian. This means that what’s coming is apples-to-apples… And on its first Wednesday after Memorial Day, Solo grossed $4.9 million for a total domestic take of $115.2 million.
On its first Wednesday after opening over Memorial Day weekend, The Mandalorian grossed just $4.2 million for a total domestic haul of just $109 million.
To be fair, because I don’t want to take anything away from Obsession, that movie is a legitimate phenomenon, the rarest of rarities where word-of-mouth is driving it to increase its box office over time, and is doing so after launching wide. This has only happened a handful of times in the 50-year-old history of wide releases. Obsession is making box office history, and that accomplishment deserves to be recognized and not plowed under as we gloat over the failure of the groomers at Disney.
Nevertheless, Obsession’s astonishing success is its own thing, as is The Mandalorian and Grogu’s deeply satisfying failure.
If the man-hating bigots at Disney hadn’t alienated, insulted, and dismissed Star Wars fans, the piece you are reading right now could’ve been about how both movies are breaking the bank.
But the Normal People-hating groomers at Disney chose to hate us, so here we are hating them right back, and relishing every second of it.