Mandalorian and Grogu opens to $163 million worldwide, Disney bets on Star Wars revival

Pedro Pascal’s first big-screen Star Wars outing gave Disney a respectable Memorial Day launch, but not the kind of breakout that resets the franchise on its own. The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $163 million worldwide and about $100 million domestically, leading the global weekend while becoming the first new Star Wars movie in seven years.

The scale of the opening matters because the film carried a heavy price tag. The New York Times reported that it cost $300 million to make and market, while Deadline said the net production budget alone was $165 million. That leaves Disney leaning not just on ticket sales, but on the wider Star Wars machine that still includes toys, streaming spillover and theme-park economics.

That wider machine remains real. Deadline’s analysis said Star Wars generates about $1 billion in annual retail sales as a toy franchise, and that 13 million Grogu toys were sold in the first two years of the streaming series. The same business logic reached the parks, where Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run received a revamp tied to the film. For Disney, the movie is not just a box-office event; it is a test of whether a brand can still drive spending across an entire corporate ecosystem.

Even so, the theatrical result was modest by the franchise’s own standards. The Mandalorian and Grogu landed below Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to about $103 million globally in 2018, and it marked the smallest opening for any Star Wars film released under Disney. That is the sharper signal inside the numbers: recognition alone no longer guarantees a franchise-sized debut.

The comparison with Michael makes the point even harder to ignore. Michael had crossed $700 million worldwide earlier in May and was later placed at about $788 million globally, with Japan not yet included ahead of its June 12 release. Variety reported a $97 million domestic opening and $217 million worldwide for the Michael Jackson biopic, a run that has continued to build into one of 2026’s biggest box-office performers.

Put side by side, the two films suggest that audiences are still showing up for big-screen events, but not for every familiar name on equal terms. Star Wars remains powerful enough to open well; Michael has shown the rare ability to keep expanding. That gap is the clearest measure of what Hollywood is chasing now: not just brand awareness, but the specific kind of spectacle that still feels worth leaving home for.