It’s been almost seven years since Star Wars was in movie theaters, but it’s not been for a lack of trying from Lucasfilm. That whole period was jam-packed with project announcement after project announcement, each of them hoping to be the film that would herald the galaxy far, far away’s return to the box office. In fact, it was almost a surprise when we learned that the film most likely to do it would come out of nowhere and become The Mandalorian and Grogu—a surprise still being felt by its director.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some inkling as to why it may have happened.
“I’m not sure what, exactly, why we were asked to do this,” Jon Favreau recently told GamesRadar about why The Mandalorian and Grogu became that unlikely movie. Unsurprisingly, the “and Grogu” part of that film title is what he’s landed on as the reason.
“I suspect it was because these are characters that people, even who hadn’t seen Star Wars, may be aware of, especially Grogu. Baby Yoda was everywhere,” Favreau continued. “And these are two characters that were used to launch Disney+, and we made no assumptions when the Mandalorian TV show came on that anybody had seen any Star Wars before. But we also wanted to make it feel authentic to Star Wars, and so the world that we created as the backdrop and the way the characters present themselves were embraced by Star Wars fans, which I really appreciate. But it also was an inroad for people who may not have ever watched Star Wars on television, and here we are now, seven years after the last film. I think there’s an opportunity to present Star Wars to a new audience using these characters as well.”
Favreau’s right, in so much as the fact that Baby Yoda was everywhere, but it’s also hard to deny that some of the luster The Mandalorian once had has worn off in the few years it’s been since the show was airing (especially after the more divisive third season muddied Mandalore’s waters even further, so to speak). What was once part of the charm of the show that Favreau raises—that the series was isolated enough that unfamiliar audiences could be sucked in, and that people would be willing to trust that a live-action Star Wars TV show could work in the first place—is all but gone at this point, as the series increasingly wrapped itself in Star Wars ephemera and guest characters.
The Baby Yoda boom might have been a reason to try and make a movie, but whether or not The Mandalorian and Grogu can entice that audience, and newcomers, to the big screen remains to be seen. Not long until we find out, either way. The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters next week on May 22.
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