Just a few days ago, we were marveling at the box office recovery that The Mandalorian and Grogu seemed to experience, by ending its opening weekend in the higher end of expectations and also increasing its grosses day-over-day. Well, things are not looking so pretty now.
The Jon Favreau-directed Star Wars film earned around $25M over its second weekend in the US, which represents a roughly 70 percent drop from its three-day opening of $81.6M. By comparison, Solo, which had a similar opening to the new movie, grossed close to $30M in its second week. It seems that all of the young people went into another screening this weekend, that of A24’s Backrooms. The $10M pic by first-time feature director Kane Parsons, adapted from his own viral YouTube short film series, earned $81M this weekend, becoming the biggest opening in the indie studio’s history. According to The Hollywood Reporter, around 86 percent of the audience is younger than 35, and more than half, under 25.
While Disney is trying to sell the story that The Mandalorian and Grogu still makes sense for them because of ancillary markets, like the film’s impact on toy sales or park tickets, the box office numbers will still be compared to other Star Wars movies as well as the film’s $165M budget. This number is lower than any other Star Wars film Disney has produced, but which still requires around $450M worldwide to break even. And of course, Disney is also interested in releasing this movie because it reestablishes the franchise as a theatrical player. Its box office floor was always going to be lower than any other project they’ve made, simply because this is the first film born out of a streaming show.
Worldwide, the film added $53M over the weekend, with the global gross now up to $246.6M. It seemed like Lucasfilm would face little direct competition until Toy Story 5 opens mid-June. However, the horror genre may have a better fight in it than expected, between Backrooms, the stellar hit Obsession, which is growing week over week, and the upcoming Scary Movie 6. The box office story of The Mandalorian and Grogu may still have some twists in it.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.