EXCLUSIVE: Lucasfilm/Disney’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is pulling in around $12M in North American Thursday night previews. It could be slightly lighter when the sun comes up in LA. Shows began yesterday at 2PM.
That preview figure is slightly less than the Thursday cash made by 2018’s origin story, Solo: A Star Wars Story which was $14.1M. That turned into an $84.4M 3-day and $103M 4-day Memorial Day opening which was not considered a starry opening at all for the George Lucas born, Disney owned franchise. Post its acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney hit it out of the park with Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens, which at point charted the highest opening at the domestic box office ever with $247.9M before Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame came along in 2018 and 2019. In addition, Disney did spectacular with the 2016 Episode 4 prequel, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which opened to $155M stateside. Mandalorian and Grogu in pre-weekend tracking is hoping to clear $80M-$100M over the 4-days. The Jon Favreau directed movie is playing at 4,300 theaters, including 425 Imax, with the full suite of PLF, 4DX, 3D and ScreenX. Presales were at $25M on Tuesday ahead of Project Hail Mary (which opened to $80.5M 3-day).
The wait-and-see of it all with the PG-13 Mandalorian and Grogu is whether the movie expands to families on Saturday and Sunday. At every step of the way in the marketing campaign, Disney has been targeting them, emphasizing the cute-cute of Grogu, i.e. that saccharine Super Bowl commercial where Pedro Pascal’s tough dude and Baby Yoda are in a sleigh, dashing through the snow. At the same time, they’ve tried to speak to the faithful with images of Empire Strikes Back snowy AT-AT scenes and wrestler Rotta the Hutt.
On the positive side, the Rotten Tomatoes audience score for Mandalorian and Grogu is higher than Solo: A Star Wars Story, 88% to 63% (realize Thursday night fans are far more gentle in reactions than non-core Star Wars audiences will be). On the downside, critics are a bit more sour on Mandalorian and Grogu than Solo, 61% fresh to 69%.
Last year Disney led the Memorial Day box office to an all-time record with $326.7M for all movies, and the best opening the holiday has ever seen with the live-action take of Lilo & Stitch with $182.6M 4-day in U.S./Canada.
Shoutout to Focus Features’ Obsession which has been ruling the box office in its weekdays, beating Michael on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The Curry Barker directed romance horror pic inched out Michael on Tuesday with $3.6M. Through Wednesday, Obsession was up to $27M at the domestic B.O. Look for a great hold on the Blumhouse co-branded pic heading into the holiday.