New ‘Star Wars’ film panned by critics, leaving the legendary franchise fighting for its future

As the reviews come in this morning for “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” concern will likely ricochet through the halls of The Walt Disney Company as execs at the studio’s Lucasfilm brace for the opening weekend results at the box-office.

The embargo lifted on critics’ reviews early Tuesday. So far, The Independent’s headline is “Stick a fork in Star Wars. It’s done,” while The Times of London asked, “Would someone please put Star Wars out of its misery?” And New York Magazine’s Vulture called the film, “Drab and stone-faced to a fault” with “lifeless performances that seem determined to lull us to sleep.” 

There have been some (sort of) bright spots: The Post and Variety’s reviews were (kind of) positive. The Post’s Johnny Oleksinski called the film, “an elongated and beefed-up episode of television” that’s “likable enough,” while Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote it’s, “nothing more (or less) than a couple of likable, diverting, semi-forgettable episodes jammed together.”

Following the back-to-back theatrical disappointments of “Solo” and “Rise of Skywalker,” there’s a lot riding on “Mandalorian & Grogu” which is the first “Star Wars” franchise film to hit theaters in seven years and arrives at a moment when Disney and Lucasfilm are transitioning to the regimes of Josh D’Amaro who is the new CEO of Disney and Dave Filoni and Lynwen Brennan, who are the new heads of Lucasfilm.

Pedro Pascal and Kathleen Kennedy, President, Lucasfilm attend the Sigourney Weaver Hand and Footprint Ceremony in Hollywood, California on May 15, 2026. Getty Images for Disney

The original trilogy helped institutionalize Memorial Day weekend as the official launch pad for summer blockbusters. Expectations for “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” which is based on the extremely popular Disney+ series are slightly more muted. Executives are hoping they can eke out a profit and, at the very least, avoid an embarrassing launch. Ticket provider Fandango recently asked thousands of moviegoers to identify the top 10 most anticipated movies of the summer. “The Mandalorian & Grogu” didn’t make the list.

“It will be a stress test for the ‘Star Wars’ brand,” Comscore’s Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst, tells Page Six Hollywood. Tracking for the film is in the $80 million to the mid-$90 million range. While those figures would be commendable, even inspiring for almost any other franchise, “Star Wars” is one of the most enduring franchises of all time.

When “Solo” was released in 2018, it earned $84 million in its opening weekend (and $104 million over the full Memorial Day holiday). This was such a catastrophe that it forced Disney to rethink its entire film strategy, which at that point was to put out a new “Star Wars” film every year, in a bid to make it the next Marvel Studios. A few years ago, former Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted that “Solo’s” lackluster performance — it opened just six months after “The Last Jedi” — made them wonder if they were over saturating the brand.

Grogu in a scene from Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.” Lucasfilm/Disney via AP

“We’re going to make sure when we make one, it’s the right one. So we’re being very careful there,” he told an investor conference in 2023.

“There’s been just this feeling of disappointment and almost … not anger. But just very critical of the creative direction that Star Wars has taken over the past few years,” Dergarabedian says.

At a screening held on Sunday for crewmembers on Disney’s Burbank lot, Filoni and Brennan delivered a taped message thanking the crew and touting the fact that this is the first Star Wars film shot entirely in the state of California.

Lucasfilm received a $21.8 million tax credit from the state. At a reported $165 million budget, it’s the cheapest “Star Wars” film since 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith,” which should make the bar for profitability lower than recent installments. Degarabedian is keeping an eye on the second weekend. “If it drops 55% that would actually be a really good result … but if it drops like 70% — that’s the measure of non success.”

This is also the first major project in the post-Kathleen Kennedy era. Kennedy was the face of Lucasfilm for the past two decades. She stepped down earlier this year, but in the latter stages of her tenure she came under withering criticism from certain quarters of the industry for her handling of several ill-fated “Star Wars” projects that never went anywhere.

Even by Lucasfilm standards, the project has been cloaked in secrecy. One source said that a member of the marketing team expressed concern that they didn’t have enough time to see the film and properly formulate a campaign. “It seemed like they kept it under wraps until very late in the game,” said the source. Promotion for “Mandalorian & Grogu” basically boiled down to: “Look how adorable Grogu is!” Baby Yoda’s visage has been stamped on a stream of merchandising collaborations: Bath & Body Works soaps, Nilla Wafers’ “Grogu Nilla Nummies,” Pop Mart blind boxes and even a suite of green Schick razors, among others.  

Not much is known about the big-screen future of “Star Wars,” beyond next year’s “Starfighter” movie from Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling. Filoni and Brennan, both of whom declined to be interviewed, have yet to reveal their master plan for the franchise, though that could change either during D23 in August or next April’s “Star Wars” celebration.

Peter Kiefer contributed to this story