The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s return to Star Wars feature films has resulted in the lowest opening ever for a Disney Star Wars movie. If you figure inflation in, it’s the lowest opening since 1999.
The Mandalorian and Grogu thudded over the Friday-Saturday-Sunday with just $81 million. With the extra day due to the four-day Memorial Day weekend, it is expected to bellyflop at right around $97 million.
The previous record-holder was the flop Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to $84 million over three days and $103 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend.
If you account for the inflation, the Mandalorian and Grogu’s soft opening is even starker. In today’s dollars, Solo grossed $137 million over those four days.
Solo would go on to make $214 million domestic and $392 million globally. Mandalorian & Grogu cost a lot less than Solo — a reported $160 million compared to Solo’s $275 million (not counting promotion costs). Solo lost a fortune. The Mandalorian’s break-even number is probably around $450 to $500 million.
Disney can take comfort in the knowledge that The Mandalorian and Grogu didn’t underperform its expectations. That truly would’ve been a disaster. Next weekend will decide the movie’s true box office fate, and there’s no serious box office competition for two weeks when Masters of the Universe and Scary Movie arrive.
What we can say for a fact is that Disney’s Woke Gestapo killed what had been the case for nearly 50 years, and that was Star Wars as an “event movie.”
I mean, if you acknowledge inflation, Mandalorian and Grogu had the worst opening for a Star Wars movie in 27(!) years. These are the three-day openings accounting for inflation…
- The Phantom Menace (1999): $117 million
- Attack of the Clones (2002): $126 million
- Revenge of the Sith (2005): $155 million
- The Force Awakens (2015): $269 million
- The Last Jedi (2017): $225 million
- Rise of Skywalker (2019): $177 million
- Rogue One (2016): $164 million
- Solo (2018): $113 million – three-day
- Mandalorian and Grogu (2026): $81 million – three-day
For context, The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened to $77 million over three days. Who would’ve believed Disney could so alienate Star Wars fans to a point where a chick flick would nearly debut to as much money as a freaken Star Wars movie.
Although this could change depending on next weekend’s box office, The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t a disaster. It might even end up a modest success. But this is Star Wars we’re talking about, and that this once bulletproof franchise has been diminished in ways no one thought possible is indisputable.