"The Mandalorian and Grogu" collapsed at the box office in its second weekend, plunging 70% in revenue and falling to third place behind two films made by directors barely old enough to rent a car. The $175 million Star Wars movie grossed just $25 million from Friday to Sunday, Fox News reported, citing Box Office Mojo data, a freefall that puts Disney on course for a potential $100 million-plus loss on the film.
The drop came just one week after an opening weekend of $81.7 million that was already considered soft for a franchise that once dominated American cinema. Now, with a domestic total sitting at roughly $137 million and international grosses described as "still underwhelming," the first Star Wars theatrical release of the 2020s looks less like a comeback and more like a confirmation of decline.
For Disney and Lucasfilm, the numbers tell a story the studio's marketing machine cannot spin away. A franchise that produced the highest-grossing domestic film in history, not adjusted for inflation, just over a decade ago with "The Force Awakens" now cannot hold an audience past opening weekend.
The films that leapfrogged "The Mandalorian and Grogu" make the embarrassment sharper. "Backrooms," a $10 million horror movie directed by 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, pulled in $81.4 million in its debut weekend, nearly matching the Star Wars film's opening on a fraction of the budget. "Obsession," a thriller directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, who found his audience on YouTube and TikTok, grossed an estimated $26.4 million over the weekend on a production budget reported at around $750,000.
Read those numbers again. A movie that cost three-quarters of a million dollars to make outgrossed a $175 million Star Wars film in the same weekend.
The contrast is not just financial. It is generational. Two young filmmakers who built followings on social media platforms delivered what audiences wanted, while the combined resources of Disney, Lucasfilm, and the Star Wars brand could not hold a crowd for a second week. Hollywood has spent years worrying that audiences are abandoning theaters. The "Backrooms" and "Obsession" results suggest the problem is not the audience, it is the product.
Reports have placed the combined production and marketing costs for "The Mandalorian and Grogu" at roughly $300 million. Fox News described a "reasonable break-even point" of around $500 million worldwide. With $137 million in domestic receipts and international numbers that have not closed the gap, the film faces a steep climb.
If the third weekend follows the same trajectory, another 70% drop, that would yield roughly $7.5 million in domestic grosses, all but guaranteeing the film finishes well short of $200 million at home. Fox News reported that it is possible the movie fails to reach even $375 million worldwide, which would leave Disney staring at a loss exceeding $100 million.
That kind of red ink from a single title is painful for any studio. For Disney, which has weathered years of controversy over its cultural direction and advertiser pressure on its entertainment properties, the loss lands on a balance sheet already under scrutiny from investors who want to see returns from the company's massive franchise portfolio.
The rot did not start with "The Mandalorian and Grogu." Fox News traced the arc back to "The Last Jedi," which hit theaters several years after "The Force Awakens" under a Lucasfilm then headed by Kathleen Kennedy. That film divided the fanbase in ways the franchise never recovered from. The studio brought back J.J. Abrams for "The Rise of Skywalker," but the damage was done.
Seven years passed before Star Wars returned to theaters with "The Mandalorian and Grogu." In the interim, the franchise lived on Disney's streaming platform, where "The Mandalorian" series built a loyal following around Pedro Pascal's helmeted bounty hunter and the breakout puppet known as Grogu. The hope was that translating that streaming hit to the big screen would reignite theatrical demand.
It didn't. The Memorial Day weekend gross fell short of "Solo," the last non-trilogy Star Wars film, a movie widely regarded as a box office disappointment when it released years ago. The premiere in Los Angeles on May 14, 2026, drew star power: Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, director Jon Favreau, and Lucasfilm president and chief creative officer Dave Filoni all walked the carpet. None of it translated into staying power at the ticket counter.
Hollywood's broader struggles with franchise fatigue are well documented, and the entertainment industry has seen no shortage of creative misfires in recent years. The same cultural disconnect that drives backlash against actors who use film festivals as political soapboxes also drives audiences away from franchises they feel no longer respect them.
A 70% second-weekend drop is not just a soft number. It is a verdict. Audiences who showed up on opening weekend did not come back, and they did not send their friends. Word of mouth, the single most powerful force in theatrical box office, worked against the film.
Meanwhile, the success of "Backrooms" and "Obsession" suggests that audiences are hungry for original stories and fresh voices, not recycled IP from studios that treat beloved franchises as content pipelines. Kane Parsons and Curry Barker did not have $300 million in production and marketing behind them. They had ideas, cameras, and audiences who trusted them.
The entertainment industry has a long history of established players dismissing upstarts, and legacy franchises have stumbled before. But the gap between what Disney spent and what it earned, compared to what two young directors spent and earned, is the kind of contrast that should keep executives awake at night. The comic-book and franchise entertainment world has lost icons this year, including legendary Marvel creator Gerry Conway, and the properties those creators built deserve stewardship, not strip-mining.
Disney's troubles extend beyond a single film. The company has faced sustained criticism from conservative consumers who feel the brand has prioritized ideological messaging over quality storytelling. Whether the issue is theme park pricing, streaming losses, or theatrical misfires, the pattern is consistent: a company that once had an unmatched instinct for what families wanted now seems uncertain of its own audience.
Late-night programming on Disney-owned ABC has drawn its own share of controversy, with on-air remarks generating backlash that feeds the broader perception that Disney's entertainment divisions have drifted from the mainstream. Each individual controversy may seem small. Together, they form a picture of a company that has lost touch with the people who buy its tickets, subscribe to its services, and visit its parks.
"The Mandalorian and Grogu" was supposed to be the course correction. Dave Filoni's appointment as Lucasfilm's creative chief was framed as a return to the storytelling values that fans loved. The opening weekend suggested cautious optimism. The second weekend erased it.
The entertainment landscape continues to shift in ways that reward risk-takers and punish complacency. Networks and studios that once seemed untouchable are making dramatic creative decisions, HBO recently wrote off a major character from one of its flagship series, while Disney clings to a formula that the box office says is broken.
The numbers are not ambiguous. A $175 million movie backed by $300 million in total costs lost its audience in a single week, got outperformed by films costing a tiny fraction of its budget, and now faces the real possibility of a nine-figure loss. The domestic total is $137 million. The break-even target is $500 million worldwide. The trajectory points nowhere close.
Star Wars was once the most reliable brand in American entertainment. Disney spent billions to acquire it, then spent years diluting it with uneven sequels, divisive creative choices, and an over-reliance on streaming content that cheapened the theatrical experience. "The Mandalorian and Grogu" was the test of whether any goodwill remained.
The audience answered. Disney just has to decide whether it's willing to listen.
