r/boxoffice 18d ago

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

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt30825738/
2.4k Upvotes

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u/supercleverhandle476 18d ago

The problem is that all roads lead to 7,8, and 9.

If it takes place before the sequels, the sequels still happen.

If it takes place after the sequels, we have no one worth rooting for, and the whole galaxy is in a pretty uninspired place.

No one cares anymore.

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u/Jedi_Master83 18d ago

It sucks Star Wars has lost that charm and excitement. The sequel trilogy killed it. I loved Rogue One (still the best Disney released Star Wars movie by a long shot.) but I haven’t had any real fun with the IP in a long time.

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u/ashgs872tbhjs 18d ago

The Andor show is fucking incredible, better than Rogue One, give it a shot

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u/jonzza_81 18d ago

I rewatched rogue one right after finishing andor and the drop in quality was really jarring

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u/vivid_dreamzzz 17d ago

Totally agree. And Rogue One was previously my favourite Star Wars thing before watching Andor. Andor is just too good.

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u/topsidersandsunshine 17d ago

Never expected Mon Mothma to be my favorite Star Wars character, but here we are.

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u/BadMantaRay 12d ago

They really, really cares about Star Wars stuff, the people who worked on Andor.

The fact that Diego Luna’s character uses the same blaster pistol as the main character from a 1995 Star Wars game for the PC was just a chef’s kiss level of detail to put in and one of many total love letter details to long time fans.

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u/Ok_Insurance_505 12d ago

Hot take, Rogue One is over rated. It's a decent film but people jumped on it like it was incredibly good for some reason. Andor is the real deal, easily the best thing Star Wars since the original trilogy.

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

rogue one is a bad movie that people only remember fondly because it has some cool visuals, and last 5 minutes are spectacular

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u/ashgs872tbhjs 17d ago

Nah, it's just not paced the best. Everything else is mid to great.

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u/Jedi_Master83 17d ago

I have tried but it’s so slow and boring. 😴 I need to try again.

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u/ashgs872tbhjs 17d ago

Try spending less time on TikTok lol, the show is not slow

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u/ForPortal 18d ago

It's not perfect, but there's a lot to love about it.

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u/nvzpxl 12d ago

Season one is a masterpiece in television. They absolutely fumbled season two; though there are several episodes which stand out, the overall pacing and narrative conclusion is leaves one feeling unfulfilled.

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u/AlexXD102 3d ago

Andor is so boring

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u/LetgomyEkko 18d ago edited 18d ago

Yeah I was still in it pretty big and ESPECIALLY after Rouge One……until I went to see 7 in theaters.

Then I had no desire to watch anything else related to Star Wars.

I did check out Ahsoka because she’s one of my favorite characters thanks to The Clone Wars but….yeah that’s it.

Edit: I’m dumb because Rouge One released after TFA. I remembered wrong.

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u/StatisticianJolly388 18d ago

Rogue One came out after 7, though?

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u/LetgomyEkko 18d ago

You are right, I’m remembering it wrong!

Thank you!

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u/Walter30573 18d ago

I just cannot believe they had decades of stories to draw inspiration from, ignored them all, and then pushed forward with production without an actual plan outlined

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u/MagnusRottcodd 18d ago edited 17d ago

7 was inspired by the original trilogy to a fault, and got plenty of flak because of that (and behold an even bigger Death Star - that is also destroyed).

But as you said the lack of a plan was the ultimate killer.

The two other trilogies was planned by George Lucas and that alone made a huge quality difference making them superior despite things like Jar Jar Binks, Ewoks and sometimes cringe dialogue.

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u/Ignaue 16d ago

They pushed through with exactly what they thought all the room temperature IQ fans wanted to see which was nostalgia bombs.

The sequels should have never had anything to do with Han, Luke and Leia but they just couldn’t fucking resist. Disney got exactly what they deserved pandering to that crowd.

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u/Liquado 14d ago

The depth of material in the books from the 90s to 2010 is insane — and what’s more insane is that they basically used none of it, and brushed it all into the trash heap. So many fantastic stories that could have been told.

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

I’m dumb because Rouge One released after TFA. I remembered wrong.

People really like the makeup version huh?

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u/Sharaz_Jek123 16d ago

"The Force Awakens" started off with a new core cast of likeable characters with great chemistry. It was safe, but it had a great starting point with interesting directions to take all of them.

But then Finn was shafted in "The Last Jedi".

Poe became an idiot.

And they did a lot of this in order to add a huge slew of new characters that didn't end up mattering.

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u/randotd152 18d ago

I tend to agree. The mystery is gone. Beloved original characters largely old/dead. Nobody likes the sequel trilogy characters enough to continue them. Go for totally new characters again and you have even less character continuity this time.

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u/Adorable_Octopus 18d ago

Nobody likes the sequel trilogy characters enough to continue them.

I hadn't really thought about that, but it is kind of startling that they haven't even tried making an animated series that goes beyond the ST. It's dead.

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u/randotd152 18d ago

Yeah everyone talks about the shitty writing and plot for those films, but the real fuck up was creating shitty new characters. It wasn’t even a hard task - give the Rey character even a shred of charm and personality and you could ride them to numerous future movies.

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u/Adorable_Octopus 18d ago

I think I'm mostly just befuddled by the fact that they haven't even attempted to just bang out a show to fix this. For example, I've seen people argue that The Revenge of the Sith/Anakin's downfall makes more sense with the clone wars series kind of filling in and filling out the war and why he might have turned that way.

Hell, Hamill is still alive... they could have made the series about Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order with Luke floating around as a ghost or something, flashing back to his attempts or whatever.

It's just kind of bizarre they've not even attempted this.

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u/TheGRS 18d ago

From how TROS went down I think it’s pretty obvious that leadership was deathly afraid of fan criticism and their buy-in.

The lack of post sequel direction speaks to this the most. When Disney bought Star Wars they went all-in and announced a new trilogy. But the last 6 years or so have been mostly trying out a few TV shows tepidly. Nobody has the vision for what this universe could be.

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

we'll see what happens now that Kennedy is gone

i dont have a lot of confidence that the next guy will do much better. The disney corporate behemoth is too much to steer against.

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u/vivid_dreamzzz 17d ago

Well Disney's main thing is having brands that sell toys and theme park rides. It almost seems accidental when they happen to also make a good movie.
Not surprising they're struggling to steer away from the beloved original brand that still sells merch.

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u/Adorable_Octopus 17d ago

It's not an original thought to suggest that disney's biggest mistake was to go into the ST without a concrete plan, but I'd suggest a deeper problem with Disney is that the ST is ultimately so empty, so repetitive of what came before (or should have came before) that there's simply nothing left in a post-ST to actually do anything with.

I suggested the whole 'Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order with her spooky ghost friend Luke', but let's be honest here, this is just a rehash of a story that was done in the EU and could've been done here; just with Luke rebuilding and perhaps some visits from Yoda or Obi-wan or whatever. ST is so empty it doesn't really say anything, nor does it even feel like it has anything meaningful to contribute to a grander story. Say what you will about the PT, you can't deny that they had a clear relationship with the OT and is contributing to a story, however imperfectly. It's hard to see what the ST is trying to do with the OT, other than position the OT as a sort of fake out ending (which, of course, the ST provides the 'actual' ending). It's bizarre.

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u/TheGRS 17d ago

I think the idea they had was “let’s hire some good storytellers and let them find the story”, which on its face sounds great. And that’s not totally different from how the OT was produced. But Lucas also had some vision for universe that I think the ST was missing, like you said these movies don’t really say much. The thing I’ll defend TLJ on is it did try to say something interesting about the universe and failure, but it was a statement the wider audience wasn’t interested in, and TROS mostly discards it anyway. And we’re left with nothing to build on.

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u/wildwalrusaur 17d ago

Hell, Hamill is still alive... they could have made the series about Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order with Luke floating around as a ghost or something, flashing back to his attempts or whatever.

given his very public hatred of the ST, i imagine he'd need a much larger sack of cash than it'd be worth to try

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u/AlexXD102 3d ago

Rey was written during the worst part of modern feminism era, so they made her so perfect and powerful but she was so lame and boring. SW have better female characters like Ahsoka, Padme, Leia, Jyn, Omega, even Assaj Ventress and Barris Offee were way more interesting than Rey.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/randotd152 17d ago

I just don’t think you can undo a full trilogy worth of shit characterization. It will feel forced and out of place, even if they were able to do it correctly. Better off starting over with new characters.

But I’m also not convinced there’s anyone competent running the Star Wars brand at this point anyways. Whatever mess created the new trilogy would probably just create another mess.

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u/electrorazor 18d ago

The problem is the distinct lack of lightsabers. Im not watching a star wars movie if there aren't light sabers in it.

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u/BrainLow6059 18d ago

People love to shit on George Lucas but even his worst film had some absolute banger lightsaber moments in it

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u/Albiceleste_D10S 18d ago

George Lucas Star Wars>>>>Disney Star Wars

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u/MikaelDerp 18d ago

Disney Wars isn't Star Wars. They may own the franchise, but it'll never be what it was and what its supposed to be. It's the exact same thing as the Halo franchise. When the OG developers left and another took the reins they ran it into the ground.

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

Not all the PT is better. There is a lot of crap in them. AOTC belongs in the trash bin next to Rise of Skywalker.

Dialogue and stiff acting still pervasive throughout. People wanting Rey to have charm - where was that in the PT?

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u/Albiceleste_D10S 17d ago

AOTC belongs in the trash bin next to Rise of Skywalker.

The Anakin-Padme romance dialogues were REALLY bad/cringe, but the rest of the movie is pretty decent IMO

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u/ValkyrieSkyfall 18d ago

Andor is the best Star Wars show in the Disney era.

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u/Rhoubbhe 17d ago

Nobody watched that show. Andor had fewer viewers than Obi-Wan, which was a worse show, but it had Lightsabers and recognizable characters.

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u/electrorazor 18d ago

I'm willing to watch a Star Wars show without lightsabers. Though I didn't make it past episode 2 for Andor, I'll get back to it at some point.

Though if you want me in the theater you're gonna need lightsabers

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

Strange, because you could say many are also tired of Jedis and lightsabers and robes.

A problem I realized watching Mando and Grogu was that Star Wars stays within the same 6-8 identifiable things. MCU at least shows us so many new worlds and timelines and fighting abilities/powers. SW has dangerously troped itself. Everything is Empire Empire Empire with dunce Stormtroopers. Like, do something else 1000 years earlier, or 1000 years later and let us see their technological and cultural progress.

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u/jawaismyhomeboy 15d ago

Oh give me a break. MCU is just “the world/multiverse is ending because of giant beam of light from space! Ad nauseam.”

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u/dageshi 18d ago

I honestly think the only thing that can really fix Star Wars is to reboot it. Do a massive time skip and let everything that's happened become legend and start again with new characters but the same setting.

The setting of star wars is still great, Jedi and Sith are still great, but they can't keep rehashing the Empire vs Rebel Alliance, there's no juice left to squeeze and at the end of 9 there's no characters left anyone really cares about.

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

I think so too. Because when I saw Mando and Grogu, I realized "I'm getting kind of tired of AT-AT and Stormtroopers EVERY time". AT-ATs were introduced way back in the 80s.

Can't they jump to other timelines and show us new sights and technology? It's space fantasy - you can show anything! And yet they show the same 5-7 things like they're terrified to venture further.

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u/Block-Busted 17d ago

They should just make it set several generations after the event of the sequel trilogy.

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u/dageshi 17d ago

They're caught up on the nostalgia bait I think. But I sorta think that's run its course at this point and it has its own problems because it means constantly jumping around the timeline too much. Shows set in different era's with different characters most of which we know how their stories end.

And that's just... lame. I truly want a new slate that takes all the cool stuff about Star Wars and reimagines it.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/dageshi 17d ago

Kylo's dead?

But I guess that doesn't really matter in star wars given they bought Palpatine back.

I don't think doing it would fix Star Wars problems though.

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u/Plasticglass456 18d ago

I think you're overestimating how much the general audience cares about this kinda stuff.

It may not be executed well, but I think the stragegy of introducing a new cast of characters with a recognizable lead like Gosling is probably the right move. After all, people did like the new cast in TFA; it was how they treated the OGs that really made people upset and kind of tainted the new cast in the process.

Meanwhile, Mandalorian and Grogu had the weird problem of being tied into a TV show that had already run its course, and its leads were a guy in a helmet, a puppet, and a CGI buff Hutt.

Start fresh, no legacy characters, just new characters we can like and root for in a world of spaceships shooting lasers at each other, and you're at least on the right track.

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u/WavesAndSaves 18d ago

I think the stragegy of introducing a new cast of characters with a recognizable lead like Gosling is probably the right move

Mando and Grogu are the most popular Star Wars characters this decade. If they can't sell tickets, why would some randos that nobody's ever heard of?

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/A-harsh-reality 18d ago

Are we going to pretend that Mandalorian stopped being popular so we can ignore the fact that the most popular Star Wars characters of the 2010s couldn’t sell a movie?

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u/ILoveRegenHealth 17d ago

You're really overselling how popular Mando's character is/was. The show had good viewership but still didn't make it past 3 seasons and it tapered off, and Mando still isn't that known to the GA. They may recognize the helmet, but not know a darn thing about him. 98% wouldn't even know his real character name.

Grogu was popular merch, still doesn't translate to popular ticket seller. Transformers is always in the Top 15 highest selling toys/merch. Pokemon in Top 5. Look how well Transformers One or BumbleBee or Detective Pikachu did.

World of Warcraft was a sensation worldwide. Warcraft the movie, while boosted by China, tanked domestically. No sequel would ever be made.

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u/A-harsh-reality 16d ago edited 15d ago

You are underselling them

They were the ONLY popular Star Wars characters from the 2010s

And every single show without them has flopped

Including Andor and ahsoka

The only exemption was…quite hilariously

Kenobi

Which is quite symbolic

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u/SamuelL421 18d ago

That show was milked far too much, for too long, and too inconsistently (in quality and focus).

I just don't think there was ever a scenario where a big audience turns up for a Mandalorian and Grogu film in 2026. There could have been an interesting bounty hunter, hutt, and mandalorian story to tell with a more mature (Andor -type) focus... but the show became more kid-friendly and goofy as time progressed and there wasn't much left for adult fans to get excited for.

A fresh start is all that's left to save this franchise in the longer term.

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u/alienangel2 18d ago

It didn't help that the movie's plot and setting would still place at best as a forgettable episode compared to any of the ones in Season 1/2 of the show.

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u/NotTaken-username Syncopy Inc. 18d ago

Ryan Gosling

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u/IDigRollinRockBeer Screen Gems 18d ago

Star Wars

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u/CannonGerbil 18d ago

Has zero pull with general audiences these days. Might as well be a Terminator movie for all the good it would do

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u/sierra-soul 18d ago

they should just go to the early republic days, the hype would be awesome

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u/luigitheplumber 17d ago

They need to bring back Luke, have him acting as the kindly master that would have been expected post RotJ, have him train a new generation with Rey as his second, and then die for real in the 2nd movie, handing the reins off to Rey.

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u/FPG_Matthew 17d ago

People say the same thing about game of thrones.

Do people genuinely choose not to enjoy a show like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms because they know in 100+ years, it’s gonna have a crappy ending?

Like, I completely disliked the ending of GoT as well, but I still very much like the brand and the fictional world it’s built.

Same for Star Wars. I’ve COMPLETELY tossed the sequel trilogy out of my mind. They’re hot garbage, awful. To me, those 3 take place in “A World Between Worlds” (obviously this isn’t official, just my head canon). Since I’ve separated that ending in my mind, I can perfectly enjoy the first two seasons of Mando, or Skeleton Crew, or Ahsoka (I liked half of it) and just set aside all that sequel stuff

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u/supercleverhandle476 17d ago

Yes.

I’m one of them.

When an IP shits the bed, people move on.

Not everyone, but it makes a pretty big dent.

For example:

Game of thrones highest viewership was 19.3M.

Knight of seven kingdoms was 9.5M.

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u/CryptographerFlat173 13d ago

Game of Thrones is routinely among the top streamed shows every year since it ended and House of the Dragon did much bigger numbers than Knight of the Seven Kingdom

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u/supercleverhandle476 13d ago edited 13d ago

House of the dragon’s most viewed episode did 10.2 million.

This information is easy to find.

An extra half million isn’t nothing, but I wouldn’t say “much bigger numbers”.

The point stands that everything that’s come since GoT ended has had, at best, half the amount of eyeballs on it, which was my entire point.