The Mandalorian and Grogu Has Hurt Star Wars More Than It’s Helped

The Mandalorian and Grogu was meant to be a huge return to the big screen for Star Wars. Instead, the movie ended up hurting the franchise much more than its helped.

After a stellar first two seasons on Disney+, The Mandalorian and Grogu’s popularity seems to have waned over the years. When the movie released in theaters earlier this year, Disney was hoping it would not only be a big box office hit, but also bring Star Wars back to the forefront of popularity in movie form. Instead, the movie has performed awfully.

As of this writing, the movie is on track to be the worst-performing Star Wars movie at the box office, despite making over $360 million. It’s an unfortunate turn for the franchise, and now shines an even harsher light on the future of the franchise, as Disney looks to get back to what made Star Wars so special years ago.

The Mandalorian and Grogu now puts Star Wars in an even bigger hole

It’s no secret that the Star Wars franchise has been in a bit of a holding pattern over the last few years. While Disney+’s Andor has received massive praise, every other project related to Star Wars seems to have released to little or no fanfare. While fans debate whether the franchise should go back to its roots or move completely into the future, one thing is abundantly clear: the next few projects in the franchise are under a lot of pressure.

Namely, the next Star Wars movie has a lot riding on it. That film, Star Wars: Starfighter, is set to be the first movie that is largely disconnected from the stories of Star Wars we know. The movie will be set five after the events of 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and as far as we know, will not be featuring any past Star Wars characters that we’ve seen yet. While this is a good attempt from Disney to usher in a new era of Star Wars, the pressure to perform well following Mandalorian and Grogu’s failures is now magnified.

Other Star Wars projects, like the rumored Rey Skywalker movie, now also must be looked at under a new lens. The sequel trilogy of Star Wars movies was received poorly as a total package, even if they did make a ton of money at the box office. While a solo Rey movie would be exciting and move the franchise forward, Disney might now have to look at its box office potential as a factor.

On the TV side, Star Wars has also slowed down its output recently. A second season of Ahsoka is in the works, and much like Starfighter, will also have some pressure on it due to how poorly some of the previous Disney+ shows have been received. At this point, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get back to the place where Star Wars was the undisputed king of sci-fi, but Disney has shown it has no plans to quit yet, so fans will have to keep the faith for now.

Source: Comingsoon.net