Mandalorian and Grogu falls to #3 at the weekend box office
Disney’s Star Wars spinoff dropped 69% in its second weekend, landing behind A24’s Backrooms and the indie horror sleeper Obsession.
The Mandalorian and Grogu dropped to third place at the domestic box office this weekend, pulling in roughly $25 million in its second frame.
That is a 69% decline from its $81.6 million Memorial Day opening.
The drop is steeper than Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s 65% second-weekend collapse in 2018, and it confirms what tracking analysts have been warning about for two weeks. The Mandalorian and Grogu is on track to become the lowest-grossing Disney-era Star Wars film in history.
It got beaten by two movies nobody expected to be playing against it.
Two horror films took over the box office
Backrooms, A24’s adaptation of the viral YouTube horror series, opened to $81.4 million across 3,442 theaters.
That is almost identical to Mandalorian and Grogu‘s opening number from a week earlier.
It is also the biggest opening in A24’s history, beating the previous record set by Civil War in 2024.
Director Kane Parsons is 20 years old. The film cost about $10 million to make. Parsons is now the youngest filmmaker ever to top the domestic box office, beating a record set by Josh Trank at 27 with Chronicle in 2012.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, about 86% of the audience for Backrooms was under 35. More than half were under 25.
The other horror hit, Obsession, has now done something no film has done since 1982. It grew its audience in both its second and third weekends, outside of the usual Christmas-release exceptions.
The Curry Barker indie pulled $26.4 million in its third weekend, up from $23.9 million the week before. Total domestic gross is now over $104.7 million on a reported budget under $1 million.
That puts Obsession at roughly 75 times its production cost at the domestic box office alone.
Mandalorian and Grogu is still losing money
The Mandalorian and Grogu has now grossed about $171 million globally against a reported $165 million net budget.
That is technically break-even on production. It does not include marketing, which industry analysts typically estimate at another 50% to 100% of production costs.
Disney insiders have told the trades that the film’s value extends beyond box office, citing what one source called the “pinwheel effect” on merchandise, theme park revenue, and Disney+ subscriber retention.
That framing is probably honest. It is also the kind of framing studios reach for when the theatrical number disappoints.
Next weekend brings two more wide releases
Friday, June 5 brings two major openers, and at least one of them is going to take more market share from Mandalorian and Grogu‘s third weekend.
Scary Movie 6 from Paramount and Miramax is tracking strongest. BoxOffice Pro projects a $43 million to $53 million opening. Deadline‘s tracking shows the film with a first-choice rating roughly three times that of Masters of the Universe among target audiences.
The reboot reunites Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall for the first time in over a decade. The viral trailer prompted Paramount to move the release up a week, from June 12 to June 5, to capitalize on momentum.
Masters of the Universe from Amazon MGM is the bigger gamble. Tracking is currently in the $25 million to $35 million range per BoxOffice Pro, with some forecasts reaching up to $45 million after positive premiere reactions.
The He-Man reboot stars Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Jared Leto as Skeletor. The reported budget is around $200 million.
For comparison, the original 1987 Masters of the Universe film grossed just $17.3 million in unadjusted dollars during its original theatrical run.
What this means for the rest of June
The Mandalorian and Grogu will likely fall further next weekend with two new wide releases pulling its remaining audience. Industry analysts expect it to land in the $10 million to $15 million range for its third frame, putting it in fourth or fifth place.
Toy Story 5 opens June 19 with tracking in the $130 million to $160 million range. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow opens June 26.
By the end of June, The Mandalorian and Grogu will likely be out of the top five entirely.
For Disney, the bigger question is what this means for Star Wars: Starfighter, the Ryan Gosling vehicle directed by Shawn Levy that opens Memorial Day 2027. Lucasfilm needs that film to open larger and hold longer than Mandalorian and Grogu did, or the franchise’s theatrical strategy is going to need a serious rethink.
For now, the summer 2026 box office has been defined by something almost nobody predicted at the start of the year. Two young filmmakers who came up making YouTube horror videos are outperforming a Disney Star Wars movie made by the team behind one of the franchise’s most popular streaming shows.
The studios will be watching that pattern very carefully heading into the rest of the summer.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Deadline (May 31, 2026), weekend box office results including Backrooms‘s $81.4 million opening, Obsession‘s $26.4 million third weekend, and Mandalorian and Grogu‘s 69% second-weekend drop
The Hollywood Reporter (May 31, 2026), Kane Parsons age and youngest-filmmaker record context, plus Backrooms audience demographics and Disney insiders’ “pinwheel effect” framing on Mandalorian and Grogu
Variety (May 31, 2026), “catastrophic 70% drop” analysis and the Obsession / Backrooms / Star Wars market dynamics
World of Reel (May 30, 2026), second-weekend collapse projections and Obsession 45-day theatrical window confirmation
GamesRadar and ScreenCrush (May 31, 2026), additional weekend results and the Solo comparison data
BoxOffice Pro and BoxOffice Theory (May 22 and May 28, 2026), updated tracking for Scary Movie 6 at $43-53 million and Masters of the Universe at $25-35 million
Deadline (May 14, 2026), first-choice rating comparison showing Scary Movie 6 at 3x the demand of Masters of the Universe
Slashfilm and Coming Soon (May 26-29, 2026), additional June 5 forecasting context
AOL and Marlon Wayans’ Instagram, Scary Movie 6 release date change from June 12 to June 5
Wikipedia, Masters of the Universe (2026) production details and cast confirmation
Box Office Mojo archives, Solo: A Star Wars Story second-weekend drop comparison and 1987 Masters of the Universe historical gross