The Next Big Star Wars Movie Is Already Doomed
In the original Star Wars trilogy, Obi-Wan Kenobi was famously Princess Leia’s “only hope,” an old war hero who could help the Rebellion destroy the Death Star. Disney, however, is placing all their hope in two very different heroes…the Mandalorian and Grogu, whose characters are getting a big-screen adventure in 2026. Unfortunately, that film is already doomed because it will be overshadowed by Avengers: Doomsday (which will come out three weeks earlier) and fans still have a lingering bad taste in their mouths from The Rise of Skywalker.
The Mandalorian & Grogu Is Set Up To Fail
Now, I don’t have Yoda’s ability to foresee the future, so I can’t absolutely guarantee that The Mandalorian & Grogu will fail. But I can research the past just fine, and that reveals a rather startling truth. Simply put, this next big Star Wars film is going to have the same things going against it that Solo: A Star Wars Story did.
The Sins Of Solo
Your lightspeed mileage may vary, but I personally thought Solo was a surprisingly great standalone film, and critics would agree: the movie currently has a 69 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it was enough of a box office disappointment (it earned $393.2 million against a budget that may have been as high as $330.4 million thanks to all those reshoots) that it generated a major ripple effect on future Star Wars projects.
Thanks to that movie’s failure, plans for solo Obi-Wan and Boba Fett movies were shelved, with those projects eventually cannibalized into TV shows for Disney+.
Star Wars Fans Have Been Constantly Disappointed
Now, what does all of this have to do with The Mandalorian & Grogu inevitably disappointing at the box office? If Solo was a good movie, then we have to consider the other factors that would have caused Star Wars fans to stay home rather than go see it. The two most likely causes are this: fans were still annoyed by a disappointing Star Wars movie (The Last Jedi), and Solo came out less than a month after the insanely popular Avengers: Infinity War.
The Rise Of Skywalker Poisoned The Box Office
In a strange bit of coincidence, The Mandalorian & Grogu is going to face these same circumstances: fans were previously bummed out by how bad The Last Jedi was and are even more angry with how awful The Rise of Skywalker ended the Sequel Trilogy. Additionally, this latest adventure with everyone’s favorite bounty hunter is coming out on May 22nd, 2026, only three weeks after Avengers: Doomsday.
Given the rising cost of taking the family out to the theater, audiences burned out on Star Wars will have to decide whether they’d rather see Robert Downey Jr.’s triumphant MCU return or an extended episode of an aging TV show.
Expected To Be An Expanded Episode
I’d love to be wrong here, and I do genuinely hope that Marvel doesn’t once again end up sapping potential audiences away from an ambitious new Star Wars movie. For that matter, there’s nothing inherently wrong with making movies that are just extended TV show episodes (Star Trek got away with it for years).
But given how excited nerds are to see evil Tony Star versus how little they care about Star Wars as a whole, Disney seems destined to discover that “this is the way” to run a galaxy far, far away, so far into the ground that it will make friends with the Sarlacc Pit.
