Both the Walt Disney Corporation and Lucasfilm are in a state of flux at the moment. After having dominated the entertainment space via its blockbuster acquisitions, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Star Wars franchise for the past decade-plus, Disney is facing a changing media landscape and seems uncertain of how to proceed. This has led to notable disappointments over the past year, such as Snow White, Tron: Ares, Elio, and even MCU installments such as Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Amidst all of this turmoil, the company is now changing leadership, with Bob Iger stepping down as CEO and being replaced by Josh D’Amaro. Simultaneously, it would seem as if Disney’s big marquee hit for the summer of 2026 was already set in place, with Disney and Lucasfilm planning to release the first theatrical Star Wars film in seven years, in the form of The Mandalorian and Grogu. However, between leadership shakeups at Lucasfilm and less-than-stellar marketing thus far, insiders and higher-ups are apparently nervous that The Mandalorian and Grogu may not be the runaway success story they were hoping for after all.
According to a new report from Variety, detailing the leadership transition at Disney, insiders are worried that The Mandalorian and Grogu’s marketing has “failed to generate the kind of excitement the marketing team was hoping to spark.” This pairs with later comments about next year’s Ryan Gosling-led Star Wars film, Star Wars: Starfighter, which insiders claim is more likely to “satisfy,” to paint the internal perception of The Mandalorian and Grogu in an exceedingly negative light.
It seems as if the disconnect between internal expectations for this film and the external results thus far stem from a single wrong decision made by Iger and co. years ago.
After previously prioritizing streaming content to an insane degree, funneling everything from the MCU to Star Wars and beyond over to Disney+ in an effort to drive up subscriptions and make that whole effort look like a success to investors, Iger realized they needed to reprioritize theatrical releases or risk losing their foothold with modern audiences. As a result, Disney opted to utilize the streaming platform instead as a testing ground of sorts, greenlighting feature films based on what was currently performing well with audiences on Disney+.
This resulted in the greenlighting of things like the live-action Lilo & Stitch, the transformation of a Moana streaming series into Moana 2, and the pivot from The Mandalorian season four to The Mandalorian and Grogu as a feature film. However, while the former two of those wound up being billion-dollar success stories, it was because of how they were able to tap into this generational nostalgia. Lilo & Stitch was capitalizing on a twenty-year nostalgia cycle, while Moana 2 was similar hitting a ten-year nostalgia cycle. In stark contrast, The Mandalorian and Grogu is falling in a no-man’s-land; too late to feel relevant to when the series was popular and too early to capture any sense of nostalgia for these characters.
As a result, it is struggling to muster up any kind of excitement from fans and Disney insiders alike.