Star Wars returned to theaters Thursday night for the first time since 2019. The Mandalorian and Grogu pulled approximately $12 million in North American Thursday preview screenings. Solo: A Star Wars Story made $14.1 million in the same Thursday preview window in 2018, turning into an $84.4 million three-day and $103 million four-day Memorial Day opening that Disney considered a disaster. Mando opened below Solo’s preview number.
The Rotten Tomatoes picture is now complete: 62% on the Tomatometer from 183 reviews, 88% on the Popcornmeter from 500-plus verified audience ratings. Critics are lukewarm. The people who actually paid for tickets are not. That 26-point gap between critics and audience is the first meaningful data point about what kind of film this actually is.
The reactions from FP’s own circles broke along lines worth examining.
Shadiversity: “The Mandalorian and Grogu is a truly retarded film, I mean brain breaking dumb with boring characters that can’t even emote or talk. It’s absolutely consistent with the quality we’ve come to expect from Disney Star Wars.”
Jeremy Griggs of Geeks and Gamers: “It’s boring as fuck and pointless. It has no reason to exist other than to prove, once again, that Disney Star Wars is completely dead. It’s just random quests and attempts to give Baby Yoda cute moments for social media reactions. Fuck this movie.”
Nerdrotic: “The Mandalorian and Grogu does explain how the First Order came to power. The New Republic is retarded.”
Matt Jarbo offered a more measured take: “The Mandalorian is essentially Indiana Jones for Star Wars. I would be very happy watching a ton of movies where a badass bounty hunter ends up getting in over his head and has to use his wits and skill to get out of it. There’s a great moment in this movie where a choice is made because it’s the only one that they’ve got, and it’s just really cool to realize that they are basically going to have to Butch and Sundance it in order to get through. Plus you get some great character work with Rotta, and don’t even get me started about the coolness of the Arena scene. Plus Zeb is back and he is the shit. I do wish it did have a bit more in regards to the larger universe and what’s happening at the time, but at the end of the day I’m happy with what we got.”
Rob Liefeld took the most straightforwardly positive position: “I won’t pretend to understand the backlash to Mandalorian. Backlashes aren’t logical, many agenda driven. Lights went down, I escaped into a galaxy far, far away. Looked good, action packed, hit all my buttons. If you are looking for a good time with the entire family, this will do it.”
The divisions here are real and they reflect something genuine about the film. The critics who disliked it and the fans who trashed it are responding to the same thing: a small-scale pulp adventure with no stakes for the broader Star Wars universe, structured like a long television episode, that does not feel like a theatrical event. The fans who liked it are responding to that same quality as a feature rather than a bug — Favreau building a serialized pulp adventure rather than a franchise-expanding mythology chapter.
The full opening weekend number arrives Sunday. The question is whether families show up Saturday and Sunday to push the four-day number above $100 million. Solo opened to $103 million on this same holiday weekend and is remembered as a franchise failure. Mando is tracking to open near or below that figure.
The 88% audience score tells one story. The $12 million Thursday preview number tells another. The full weekend will tell the third, and most important, one.
What is your read on the film? Let us know in the comments.
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