The Mandalorian & Grogu Already Faces One Giant Uphill Battle Among Casual Star Wars Fans

After three seasons of "The Mandalorian," Jon Favreau's upcoming movie "The Mandalorian and Grogu" has a tough task ahead: making general audiences understand that it's a movie. The first teaser trailer doesn't outright say, "It's a movie this time!" but it does strain to convey that information by showing off some of the more expensive VFX shots and boasting that it's "Forged for IMAX." Even with those clues, though, casual "Star Wars" fans may well come away with the impression that this is a teaser for a TV movie, destined for a straight-to-Disney+ release.

To be clear, it's not. "The Mandalorian and Grogu" will be premiering in theaters on May 22, 2026, a high-pressure summer tentpole slot. Creating even more pressure is the fact that this is the first big screen "Star Wars" release since 2019's much-maligned "The Rise of Skywalker." It even features perhaps the only element of "Rise of Skywalker" that people universally liked: squeaky-voiced Anzellan mechanic Babu Frik. And the film will also feature the first big-screen, live-action appearance of Zeb Orrelios!

If your response to that is "who the hell is Zeb Orrelios?", well, that brings us back to the problem of "The Mandalorian and Grogu" being so heavily tied to the TV side of the "Star Wars" universe. Already, newcomers who want to know who the title characters are will have to catch up on three seasons of "The Mandalorian" (plus several episodes of "The Book of Boba Fett," since that show lost interest in Boba Fett halfway through and resolved a major "Mandalorian" story arc instead). Adding in a character from the animated series "Star Wars Rebels" isn't going to tip the scales for anyone who hasn't seen that show, and fans who have seen that show were probably going to see this movie anyway.

Even the press release accompanying the teaser seems embarrassed about this, referring to the character as "The Mandalorian's Zeb Orrelios" rather than "Star Wars Rebels' Zeb Orrelios." (Zeb appeared in "The Mandalorian" in a cameo role for a grand total of 30 seconds, and was never named.)

Direct continuations of TV shows (as opposed to reboots like "Mission: Impossible" or "21 Jump Street") don't come along in theaters very often, and there's a good reason for that: Such movies have a terrible track record at the box office. From "Twilight Zone: The Movie," which not only bombed but also killed several of its cast members during production, to the beloved-but-doomed "Firefly" follow-up "Serenity," history has proven that convincing audiences to make the leap from cozy TV viewing to a night out at the movies is incredibly difficult.

There are exceptions to the rule, with anime being a notable example. Just recently, "Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle" packed audiences into theaters worldwide, enjoying a massive $70 million opening weekend in North America alone. 2019's "Downton Abbey," a continuation of the TV period drama of the same name, was also a hit (though 2022's "Downton Abbey: A New Era" saw diminishing returns). 

For the most part, though, the TV-to-big-screen move is a gamble that's not worth the risk. AMC backed off plans for a trilogy of movies featuring "The Walking Dead" protagonist Rick Grimes, instead downscaling them to a TV miniseries spin-off, "The Ones Who Live." Crime drama "Peaky Blinders" is wrapping up with a movie, "The Immortal Man," but as a Netflix release, its time in theaters is likely to be perfunctory, with the streaming audience prioritized.

And therein lies the biggest issue for "The Mandalorian and Grogu": It's so strongly tied to the Disney+ brand that separating it won't be easy.

When Disney joined the streaming wars and launched Disney+ on November 12, 2019, "The Mandalorian" was one of the big-ticket items available at launch: an original, exclusive series featuring the coolest armor in the "Star Wars" universe. Then, the first episode made the internet explode by ending with the reveal of a mysterious, adorable Baby Yoda. By the end of its first full day of service, Disney+ already had 10 million subscribers signed up, with "The Mandalorian" being a major driving factor. By mid-2024, it was still the most-watched Disney+ Original series.

Like other theatrically-released Disney movies, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" is fated to end up on Disney+ eventually, and subscribers know that. It seems inevitable that many fans who are used to seeing Din Djarin and Grogu's adventures on the small screen will simply wait a few months to watch the movie in the comfort of their own home, and on the duo's original home of Disney+. Indeed, one of the appealing things about "The Mandalorian" was that it felt designed for the small screen experience, with refreshingly low-stakes stories about (for example) transporting an anxious frog lady and her eggs, rather than an epic saga about saving the galaxy. 

This isn't Disney's first attempt to follow up Disney+ TV shows with big-screen movies — and the previous attempts haven't gone well. "The Marvels," a follow-up to both "Ms. Marvel" and "WandaVision," was a disastrous box office bomb. "Captain America: Brave New World," which followed on from "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," fared better but still failed to break even. The lesson seems clear: Fans of these shows are reluctant to follow them into theaters, and people who haven't watched the shows yet aren't willing to do hours of homework just to watch a movie.

For better or worse, though, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" releases in theaters on May 22, 2026.