Weekend Preview: Redefining the ‘Star Wars’ Audience

Disney returns to its familiar Memorial Day weekend spot with the first Star Wars film in seven years—Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The positioning is familiar for Disney, as eight years prior the studio released another Star Wars spinoff, Solo: A Star Wars Story. Although not even a decade has passed since the franchise’s last theatrical release, the audience landscape has drastically changed, leaving analysts to wonder: what is the theatrical fanbase for Star Wars today?

Theatrical Intent for Mandalorian immediately reveals a general audience floor for the Star Wars brand despite its exclusive streaming home in recent years. Interest is still strong in the Star Wars brand, with about 75% of the general public having some interest in seeing Mandalorian, whether in theaters or on streaming.

Broken down, theatrical intent is healthy for the film, with about half of the public wanting to see Mandalorian specifically in theaters. In fact, 29% of the general public is even more enthusiastic as they want to see the film opening weekend or in premium format. On the other hand, 28% would rather wait to watch Mandalorian as they have for three seasons: on streaming. At first glance, home viewing intent and opening weekend theatrical intent might be a bit too close for comfort heading into release. If just as many people are as eager to stream the movie later this year as they are to see it on the big screen, does that mean its theatrical goals are doomed? 

It depends on how we define success. Similar ratios appear for other recent IP tentpoles such as Thunderbolts*, Superman, and Mission Impossible. In fact, this pattern is actually more even than normal family fare, such as Zootopia 2 or How To Train Your Dragon, which skews significantly more towards streaming despite enjoying strong domestic box office runs. There are hits and budget-related misses among this crop.

For the aware or frequent moviegoer, Mando & Grogu’s theatrical intent increases significantly in almost direct proportion to decreases in rates for “no interest” in the film. Within this group, overall interest (80+%) and either opening weekend intent or premium large format intent (about 40%) highlight clear summer tentpole enthusiasm. But it also retains that streaming loyalty from The Mandalorian’s origins, with about a similar rate opting for at-home viewing. For the casual moviegoer, both in general and specifically aware of the film, the more family-friendly or streaming-based distinction emerges. This isn’t a massive departure from family films, but is slightly more out of place for an IP action tentpole. 

Sifting through the different cuts of Intent, does Mandalorian and Grogu present more like an action tentpole or a family-friendly outing? Looking at the demographic breakdown, similarities among the obvious comparable films appear, paving the film’s likely path ahead. 

In a vacuum, Mandalorian and Grogu already achieved blockbuster status by its opening week for a standalone summer flick. We  covered the same pattern previously with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which usually guarantees a $50 million-plus opening but leaves the subsequent upside as a mystery to solve. But is this enough to qualify as a successful Star Wars movie specifically? 

Mando & Grogu’s overall Interest and Intent skews older than family summer film How To Train Your Dragon, slightly more female than recent hit Project Hail Mary, and slightly younger than Superman and last year’s Memorial Day action film Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. However, overall metrics reflect the consistency of the male-driven IP audience that films work to either capture enthusiasm or expand towards the family audience per release.

Out of the comparable films, Mandalorian and Grogu most consistently resembles a film from the previous summer that also dabbled in recruiting  streaming audiences  to the big screen: Marvel’s Thunderbolts*. Despite the different franchises, the films’ audiences share an overlap. Whether Mandalorian and Grogu can significantly outgross the recent MCU entry’s $74.3 million opening performance will be determined by the fans. But the data provides a framework for reference for a franchise that has not had a theatrical audience since before the pandemic.

The Mandalorian and Grogu brings Star Wars back to the big screen as the industry tries to rediscover who the Star Wars audience actually is today. Rather than jumping to conclusions based on former franchise performances or previous performances from that release date, analysis of the audiences themselves provides a more honest picture about where the audience is and where it could go.