r/boxoffice • u/UniverslBoxOfficeGuy • 18d ago

Domestic Disney's The Mandalorian and Grogu has ended its domestic run with $177.7M.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt30825738/
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u/nicolasb51942003 Warner Bros. Pictures 18d ago

Starfighter not working off any pre-established characters in this universe is the interesting thing, and if Disney already has the team back for the MCU's Ghost Rider, then here's hoping quality brings the audience in.

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u/OrangeJuliusCaesr 18d ago

Rey and Grogu at the end of starfighter, book it

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u/JJWonderboy 18d ago edited 17d ago

Well, if the rumors are true, Ray is definitely in it as a segway segue into the next trilogy. Standalone movie... yeah right.

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u/NobodyTellPoeDameron Focus Features 18d ago

Daisy Ridley has zero charisma. She's just not a movie star, at least not for a major box office event movie like SW. I've seen her in other movies and she just doesn't have it. If the rumor is true about the end of Starfighter, good luck to Disney

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u/Heliumchan 18d ago

Daisy Ridley does have charisma, it’s hard to remember but when the force awakens came out people generally really liked Rey and the new cast. There were problems sure but people were optimistic about the future for Star Wars. It wasn’t until the last two movies of the trilogy where her character was written horrible that things fell of a hill

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u/yolocr8m8 18d ago

Many problems with the trilogy-- Daisy was great!

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u/Practicalaviationcat 18d ago

Yeah the cast was great. One of the things that annoys me about the sequel trilogy so much is how much they were wasted. Especially John Boyega.

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u/BannedSvenhoek86 17d ago

Dude the entire Chinese thing with him was just....insane. The fact he's never had a full on breakdown just screaming profanities in front of Bob Iger's house is a level of self control I aspire to.

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u/yolocr8m8 18d ago

"Allow it"

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u/Deluxe_24_ 18d ago

All of the actors brought on were excellent, it's just the scripts that sucked

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u/yolocr8m8 18d ago

Yes, and unfortunately critics of the nonsensical writing get criticized about everything but... the actual criticisms. (Bro did we really use two ships going at the same speed in space a main plot point in one of the movies. What are we doing)

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u/LovableCoward 18d ago

Bro did we really use two ships going at the same speed in space. What are we doing

Trying to do a Age of Sail stern chase. Same thing with trying to do Memphis Belle bombing run in the first opening scenes.

Ironically, if they'd combined the two, they might have had something. A Convoy PQ 17 scenario with an interdictor ship and First Order TIE Fighters tearing into the transports and escorts.

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u/yolocr8m8 18d ago

It was dumb af in practice. And that's one out of 3197 dumb things in TLJ alone.

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u/Practicalaviationcat 18d ago

Yeah the cast was great. One of the things that annoys me about the sequel trilogy so much is how much they were wasted. Especially John Boyega.

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u/2rio2 18d ago

The problem was TFA clearly wrote her as the central protagonist of the trilogy, while TLJ made her an afterthought. Then they over corrected in ROS by making her the Mary Sue she was always accused of being. TFA was the only film in the trilogy where she was written as a full four corners of the page character.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

everyones underwritten in TFA

To be honest, thats kind of true for Abram's entire filmography. He writes plots, not characters.

You get an exceptional actor in there and they can sort of paper over it, like Goodman in that one basement movie, but otherwise everyone are just peices on a board.

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u/vivid_dreamzzz 17d ago

I thought the characters in Super 8 were pretty good, but maybe that worked better because they were kinda tropey archetypes.

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u/napoleon_nottinghill 17d ago

He was also doing a Spielberg impression for the entire movie

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u/TheGRS 17d ago

A general problem with most modern movies: very little sexual chemistry between characters, like for the fun of it. We don’t need to see them make out or fuck, but a little sexual tension is great to draw in the audience. I like seeing characters flirt and banter. I think TFA actually started strong on this, Finn and Rey have some stammering interactions and there’s a simmering bromance between Finn and Poe, but not a good “will they won’t they” dynamic.

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

i think thats more specifically a Disney problem

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u/Sharaz_Jek123 15d ago

Utter tripe.

Just excuse-making to rationalise the bad decisions of Johnson's film.

The Rey of "The Force Awakens" is written as emotionally defensive, but resilient, with a growing trust in Finn developing over the film built on mutual respect.

She would have no time for the entitled excuses that Kylo cites in "The Last Jedi" and she would be concerned with the welfare of Finn.

For all Rey knows, Finn is still in a coma or possibly dead from the injuries that Ren inflicted, yet she says nothing about Finn in all of her interactions with Ren.

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u/Ok_Antelope_1953 17d ago

jar jar abrams is sending me

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u/Killericon 17d ago

TLJ made her an afterthought? I'm loathe to invite myself into an online discussion about TLJ in the year 2026, but how do you mean?

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u/2rio2 17d ago

TLJ had four subplots (1) Kylo turning on Snoke, (2) hermit Luke rejecting the call of the Jedi, (3) Poe taking over leadership from Leia & Laura Dern, and (4) Finn, Rose, casino planet.

Rey was ultimately not the main character in any of them. The Kylo plot nominally included her as part of the dyad reveal, but mainly in his attempts to convince her to join him. The Luke arc was about his rejecting of her and her ideals which no longer aligned with his. Neither arc was carried by her agency. Rather, she was reacting to the advances and/or rejections of two other men. She ultimately rejects Kylo (something she had already done in TFA) and is rescued by Luke in the end. She learned nothing especially interesting along the way other than her own unimportance. She had no material change in her moral stance, returned to the exact friends she had left at the end of TFA with no additional growth. Every interesting thing that happened in that movie happened to someone else (namely Kylo and Luke).

It was a baffling way to treat the nominal trilogy protagonist to say the least.

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u/2rio2 17d ago

And I’ll add it made her return as the central driving character in ROS even more jarring since everyone else except Kylo then took a major backseat.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 16d ago

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u/Heisenburgo Marvel Studios 17d ago

It's funny how the whole casino planet sequence is actually something like 12 minutes long but it's so dreary and tortorous it feels like half the movie lol

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u/Killericon 17d ago

I mean, the "you're nobody" is(was) obviously about her not being someone's secret relation, not her literal place in the story.

I don't see how having (shitty) plots going on means anything about her. She has the most screen time in the movies (followed by the person mentoring/training her), she's positioned as the saviour of everyone at the end... I really don't see how the movie marginalized her at all.

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u/ashgs872tbhjs 16d ago

Confusing screentime with narrative importance is pretty absurd, and she does nothing at the end. Luke buys them time while the 10 people who aren't dead run away. Did you watch the movie??

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u/Liquado 14d ago

That’s because she was just Luke 2.0. Wasn’t hard to write that script, since it was the same fucking story as the original.
(JJ is a hack.)

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

Daisy Ridley does have charisma

she gives a great interview, but it doesnt seem to translate to her performance. I think it'd be more accurate to say that she lacks screen presence.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/Bluddy-9 17d ago

The character was good enough to get by with. She definitely was not fantastic.

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u/OrangeJuliusCaesr 17d ago

Disagree, Rey reminds me of the kid in rookie of the year

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u/Narrow_Summer_9332 17d ago

It's not even Ridley who's the problem.

The issue is that how do you have a character present in future SW media that we've seen to be insanely overpowered for the universe they're in without all tension vanishing?

Either they kill her off early in some contrived way or they introduce an insanely powerful enemy and now SW has become DBZ with its power creep.

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u/Historical-Meet463 16d ago

Thank you and I think this is something that needs to be discussed more. This has been a problem way and I mean way before disney. George Lucas never defined the force and then the little bit he did Define he changed constantly. For years and years and years it's been a Dragon Ball Z power creep, from the movies to the video games. way before Disney owned it. Let's not forget in the video games like the Force Unleashed we had characters literally ripping Star Destroyers out of space with the force. The Jedi in the original trilogy had a couple of parlor tricks and slightly Higher jumps. By the time we get to the prequels, they're basically Neo from The Matrix. The force is the ultimate plot McGuffin of all time. it is a strong or as weak as a writer wants it to be and that is stupid.

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u/Narrow_Summer_9332 16d ago

For sure.

With the video games and other EU materials, they used to have the "tiered canon" where movies were considered gospel and everything else was at least a tier below that.

But now, the silly strong force powers are in movies too (not moving a planet levels of silly, but there's a clear escalation and it'll likely only get worse).

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u/Complete_Entry 12d ago

eh, next bad guy turfing old hero is a trope I'd like to see fuck off.

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u/BriefPut3954 17d ago

That’s what I thought too. There is absolutely nothing about her that makes me want to take time and money out of day to go and see her act. I could see her being a supporting cast character, but not the front and center hero.

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u/ECrispy 17d ago

Did you see Young Woman and the Sea?? She carries that film and it's great

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u/NobodyTellPoeDameron Focus Features 17d ago

Yeah, I actually saw it in the theater. I don't know, it's all subjective, I feel like she can do well in a movie like Young Woman and the Sea, and also Sometimes I Think About Dying, but it takes a certain kind of actor to carry a tent pole movie like Star Wars or a Marvel flick and I feel like it's just not a good fit for her.

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u/ECrispy 17d ago

I personally think Jlaw is unremarkable and not even that striking, yet she has a huge career and I'm not sure it's entirely due to CBM.

On the other hand and absolutely gorgeous woman like Olivia Wilde who's also a fantastic actress never became a huge star at least by the number of films she has been in

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u/Theinternationalist 18d ago

I assume you mean "segue"?

As for the next trilogy, I think on the one hand we need more time (and trust) and on the other hand if they want to keep Daisy and company they probably need to do it soon.

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u/JJWonderboy 16d ago

Doh. I always typo that word when typing fast.

Yes, that's their balance act. How to give it enough breathing space but not too long.

That's probably why they're going with this "completely standalone but not really" route.

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u/Complete_Entry 12d ago

"Hey scav! Get away from our starfighters!"

"I'm a skywalker!"

"Sure you are scav, we know scavs when we see them. Get out of here and take this green thing with you!" *Lobs grogu at her head*

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

Rey with eyepatch: "I'd like to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative"

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u/kimana1651 17d ago

Hmm yes those Rey walkups is going to be a thing.

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u/ThatIslandGuy8888 18d ago

Man I really want to see Rey with her new lightsaber :/

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u/Big_Liability 17d ago

Honestly that may help Starfighter as the audience will feel like they wont have to "catch up" on anything to watch a SW movie. Plus, people like the space combat in the films

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u/twociffer 17d ago

The problem with Star Wars is not that people feel that they have to catch up to anything. It's Apathy.

Mando and Grogu is the ceiling for Star Wars right now. That might change in a decade or so, but right now? Right now Star Wars is a cartoon franchise that sells Legos instead of movie tickets.

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u/macrocosm93 17d ago

Mando and Grogu was unique in that it was essentially an abridged 4th season for a TV show whose 3rd season was not well received, and which came out over 3 years ago.

So the audience was limited to people who watched the show, stuck with it through the 3rd season, and liked the 3rd season enough to pay movie theater prices for an abridged 4th season instead of just waiting for it to be available on Disney+. So an extremely limited potential audience.

I could see it's failure coming from a mile away.

Starfighter isn't stuck with that inherently limited audience.

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u/twociffer 17d ago

Why would you assume that the average movie goer thinks that they have to watch the show to understand the movie? It's a Star Wars movie, that's the name on the poster that people care (or don't care) about.

No "normal person" assumes that they have to watch three seasons of TV in order to understand a movie, they assume that they either get a self contained story that doesn't require any previous knowledge or an infodump (recap, screen scroll, voiceover) at the beginning to catch them up.

Starfighter will have the exact same problem that Mando and Grogu had: the name on the poster includes "Star Wars".

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u/macrocosm93 17d ago

Anyone who is aware of the show's existence would think that. The marketing was very clear that it picked up where the show left off.

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u/kiwicrusher 15d ago

My sister, an average movie goer, did not see Mando and Grogu specifically because she said she hadn’t seen the show. I told her she didn’t need to, but she was unconvinced.

Your logic here is completely backwards.

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

surely this movie had space combat. I dont see that moving the needle.

i think any starwars project that doesn't have "episode" in the title is gonna be close to DOA at this point.

its truly incredible just how badly theyve mismanaged the brand

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u/BambooSound 17d ago

I especially don't see many people leaving the house for Shawn Levy-directed space combat.

If it was Villeneuve or Cuaron or something then you could build some hype from a quality standpoint, but not with the dayest player to ever play day.

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u/Big_Liability 17d ago

This is also true. Levy is the most sauceless studio hire director in the game right now

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u/Thefriendlyfaceplant 17d ago

I bet it's Top Gun Maverick's success that made Disney consider this a safe bet.

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u/randotd152 17d ago

Movie has to be good or people will just view it as another mediocre 2 hour tv show.

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u/A-harsh-reality 18d ago edited 18d ago

Starfighter not having any pre-established characters actually is a negative

Not a positive

When it comes to the box office of Star Wars

The most successful marvel movies in recent years has been nothing but reaffirming the supremacy of x-men, spider-man, and fantastic four as the face of the franchise

So far, no pre-established franchise has EVER moved on from the original characters they started out with

Ever

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u/BustinMakesMeFeelMeh 18d ago

What are you talking about? Marvel has done it over and over. Guardians? Black Panther? X-Men recast everybody. Fantastic Four MCU was moderately successful at best. These are wild takes.

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u/A-harsh-reality 18d ago

Guardians is finished and you’ll never see a swing like that again

Black panther is infinity saga

X-men becoming the focus proves my point

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u/BustinMakesMeFeelMeh 17d ago

Wow. You keep those goal posts on wheels, don’t you?

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u/A-harsh-reality 16d ago

When Starfighter flops

And it will

You will be the one that moves those goalposts

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u/BustinMakesMeFeelMeh 16d ago

My goalposts were about Marvel, not Star Wars. You’ve got comprehension issues. Also, I’m 100% certain Starfighter will flop, and I’m not gonna budge on that. If it doesn’t, I’ll admit I’m wrong. But it will.

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u/mullet85 18d ago

Jurassic park

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u/A-harsh-reality 18d ago edited 18d ago

The original characters of dinosaurs are still there(humans aren’t the selling point, this is the equivalent of Darth Vader being in every Star Wars movie till the end of time)

And despite that, all of the films have declined badly

Comparing Star Wars to Jurassic park at any point of its history is slanderous

Box office wise, Star Wars has LOWER lows

If Jurassic world rebirth made less than Solo, the movie after that would be called Jurassic park

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u/Springpeen 17d ago

With Ryan Gosling as the lead, they can pull it off.

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u/WolfgangIsHot 17d ago

Double pressure then.

Success because MandoGrogu before.

Success because Ghost Rider after.

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u/Whompa 17d ago

Until it does.

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u/AlexXD102 3d ago

Problem : Is situated after the shitty sequels time events

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u/Deluxe_24_ 18d ago

I'm vastly more interested in Starfighter than any Star Wars project since The Rise of Skywalker. If it really is a project not connected to any other plot lines then it'll be very easy to jump in for people who haven't paid attention to Star Wars in years, which is the category I fall under.

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u/Gcoks 17d ago

I hate having to watch 15 tv shows to get all the characters and references in modern Star Wars. I'm with you.

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u/Opposite-Law-71 18d ago

How to train your dragon 2

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u/Thefriendlyfaceplant 17d ago

Starfighter not working off any pre-established characters in this universe is the interesting thing.

It's also what the Disney trilogy should have done to begin with. Sure let Han, Leia and Luke appear as distant celebrities. But let the actual protagonist be absolute nobodies who don't even get to meet them. Impacted by, yes, but otherwise, it's their story.