It was a long time coming, but it’s been confirmed by Disney now: The Mandalorian & Grogu is officially targeting a May 22, 2026, release date.
The announcement was made today in anticipation of next week’s CinemaCon panel in Las Vegas, where the Mouse House is presenting its future slate on Thursday, April 11. The company boasts an attractive lineup for 2026, which besides the next Star Wars movie (and there is still another untitled far, far away title scheduled for December) will be the new home for the live-action Moana remake (July 10) and Toy Story 5 (June 19).
As far as competition goes, The Mandalorian & Grogu is not opening up against any big movie, but Disney is still keeping the next Avengers installment on May 1 of that year. Given Marvel’s current behind-the-scenes problems, it’s looked unlikely for a while that this will be the case for much longer. Bob Iger is certainly no stranger to opening up a big Avengers movie a few weeks before a new Star Wars entry, and thus sacrificing the latter by focusing most of the company’s marketing resources on Marvel Studios. He admitted as much in 2018 after Solo: A Star Wars Story failed to crack $400M worldwide by opening within the month of Avengers: Infinity War, which then became Disney’s biggest movie to date.
As mentioned, there is another Star Wars movie scheduled for December 18 of that year, which will mark the 11th anniversary, to the day, of the release of The Force Awakens. The current thought is that this is going to be taken by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s New Jedi Order (w/t), but it’s yet to be confirmed. Because this wasn’t in today’s press release, it’s unlikely to be mentioned next week either. We could learn something about it during this August’s D23 Expo, where Lucasfilm could have a presence to compensate for the lack of a Star Wars Celebration in 2024.
Filming on The Mandalorian & Grogu is set to begin in June in California, and will span several months until early fall. We still don’t know who is returning for the film, aside from Pedro Pascal as the voice of the title character and Brendan Wayne / Lateef Crowder as the stunt doubles. Giancarlo Esposito has been lobbying for a comeback in every other interview he makes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, given the tongue-in-cheek approach he usually takes when talking to the press and the fans. Katee Sackhoff’s return is expected but not guaranteed yet.
Given the production schedule, could get an early look at the film at next year’s Celebration in Japan. Filming details on New Jedi Order are still unknown, but we could learn more about the movie at D23. They plan to shoot it either late this year or early 2025.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
source: www.starwarsnewsnet.com