The box office story around The Mandalorian & Grogu just got a little more interesting. After some earlier softer-looking chatter around the film’s commercial prospects, Boxoffice Pro’s latest long-range forecast now says the movie could open in the $90 million to $100 million range domestically when it hits theaters on May 22, 2026. That would be a meaningful shift in tone around the film’s launch outlook, even if the upper end still would not put it near the biggest modern Star Wars openings. That is the key thing here: this is better, but it is not suddenly a “Star Wars is back to automatic $150M openings” story. Better than the gloomier narrative According to Boxoffice Pro’s long-range forecast, a $100 million opening would still rank as the lowest Star Wars debut since Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to $84.4 million in 2018. The same report notes that The…
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Andor Season 2 Has Now Won a Peabody Award
Andor Season 2 is no longer just a nominee. It is now officially a Peabody Award winner, giving Lucasfilm’s most prestige-coded Star Wars series another serious trophy on the shelf. The 86th Peabody winners were announced by the Peabody Awards, and Andor (Season 2) appears among this year’s winners in Entertainment. That makes this a pretty big follow-up to the earlier nomination story. This is not Andor’s first Peabody win What makes the update even stronger is that this is not the first time Andor has pulled this off. The Peabody Awards previously honored the series at the 83rd Annual Peabody Awards for its first season, which means the show has now won Peabody recognition twice. Jedi News also noted that Season 1 had already won a Peabody, making this latest result feel less like a fluke and more like a pattern. And honestly, that feels extremely on-brand for Andor….
Shawn Levy Says Star Wars: Starfighter Is Now in the Edit Room
Star Wars: Starfighter has moved into a very important phase of production: the part where the footage stops being potential and starts becoming an actual movie. Speaking to Variety at the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, director Shawn Levy said he is currently editing the film, describing himself as being in the “beautiful sanctity of the edit room” while shaping the movie ahead of its 2027 release. As Levy put it, “We don’t come out until next year,” adding that he is in the “dark quiet of the edit room finding the best possible shape for the film.” The quote comes from Variety’s recent interview with Levy. That is not exactly a flashy reveal, but it is the kind of update that makes the project feel more real. Earlier official coverage from StarWars.com’s original announcement of Star Wars: Starfighter confirmed that the film stars Ryan Gosling, is directed by Shawn Levy, and…
The Mandalorian & Grogu May the 4th IMAX Previews Have Already Sold Out
That did not take long. The special-look IMAX fan events for The Mandalorian & Grogu on May the 4th are now officially sold out, according to Star Wars’ own social posts announcing the sellout. The events were set up as free advance screenings at select IMAX theaters around the world, giving fans an early look at more than 25 minutes of footage from the movie ahead of its full theatrical release. And honestly, that is a pretty strong signal. Fans moved fast on this one Lucasfilm and IMAX only just started pushing the event publicly, with trade coverage confirming that the May 4 screenings would include more than 25 minutes of exclusive footage, special fan giveaways, and a new poster at select locations. Boxoffice Pro reported the event on April 23, framing it as a global May the 4th fan push tied directly to the movie’s theatrical rollout. Now the…
Gina Carano Says She Has Spoken With Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni After Settlement
The Gina Carano story is not over yet, even if the legal fight is. After settling her lawsuit with Disney and Lucasfilm in August 2025, Carano says she has already spoken with both Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. The detail comes from Carano’s appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, later picked up by multiple outlets, where she described a post-settlement Zoom call with the two Mandalorian creatives as warm and surprisingly natural. According to Carano, the conversation did not sound tense at all. As quoted by CinemaBlend’s write-up of the interview, she said, “I’ve already had a conversation with Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau,” describing both as “really lovely,” and said the call happened after the lawsuit was settled. She also recalled Favreau joking, “So, where did we leave off?” That is the headline. The more complicated part is what it actually means. The lawsuit is over, but a return…
The Acolyte Has Quietly Reappeared on Disney+’s Top 10
For a show that was supposed to be yesterday’s argument, The Acolyte has suddenly popped back into the conversation again. According to FlixPatrol’s Disney+ charts, The Acolyte re-entered the platform’s Top 10 TV Shows list in the No. 9 spot in the United States this week. That puts it back on the board well after its original release cycle, and well after most people assumed its streaming-chart life was over. That alone makes it a mildly surprising little Star Wars story. It is not topping the charts — but it is back To be clear, this is not The Acolyte suddenly becoming the biggest thing on Disney+. FlixPatrol’s current U.S. chart still has Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord near the top, along with titles like Daredevil: Born Again and several other Disney+ regulars. But The Acolyte showing up at No. 9 is still notable, because it means enough viewers…
Andor Season 2 Lands a Hugo Nomination — and It’s the Only TV Series in Its Category
Andor just picked up another prestige nomination, and this one comes with a fun little twist: it is the only television series nominated in the 2026 Hugo Awards’ Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category. The official Hugo finalists list includes Andor (Season 2) alongside Frankenstein, KPop Demon Hunters, Mickey 17, Sinners, and Superman. That makes this nomination feel a bit more interesting than the average awards-season headline. The category is basically a movie field this year The Hugo Awards’ official finalists page lists six Long Form nominees, and Andor is the only TV entry among them. Everything else in the category is a film release, which gives Andor a slightly unusual place in the lineup. The official listing credits Season 2 to writers Tom Bissell, Dan Gilroy, Tony Gilroy, and Beau Willimon, and directors Ariel Kleiman, Janus Metz, and Alonso Ruizpalacios. That does not automatically make Andor the favorite, of…
Looking Back at Every Star Wars Celebration Ahead of 2027 Ticket Sales
With Star Wars Celebration 2027 tickets going on sale on May 6, this feels like the perfect time to look backward before the fandom charges forward again. We already know the next Celebration is going to be a big one. The event heads to Los Angeles in 2027, and with ticket sales around the corner, the usual mix of excitement, planning, badge stress, hotel panic, and “should we actually do this?” energy is starting to kick in. If you missed the latest update on badge pricing and the on-sale date, we already broke that down in our guide to Star Wars Celebration 2027 tickets, prices, and the May 6 on-sale date. But before everyone starts refreshing ticket pages and wrecking their budgets, it is worth taking a step back and remembering just how long and strange the road to Celebration 2027 has actually been. This article is also built around…
Lucasfilm and IMAX Are Letting Fans Watch the First 30 Minutes of The Mandalorian & Grogu on May the 4th
Lucasfilm and IMAX are doing something very smart with The Mandalorian & Grogu: they are letting fans sample the movie early, on the most Star Wars date imaginable. A special May the 4th IMAX event is giving fans the chance to watch the first 30 minutes of The Mandalorian & Grogu at select theaters before the film’s full release. Fandango’s event listing says the screening will preview more than 25 minutes of never-before-seen footage, and the RSVP sign-up is being handled through a theater registration form for local participating locations. That is not a small teaser. This is Lucasfilm effectively treating the opening half-hour like a theatrical sales pitch, which makes a lot of sense for a movie that has been pushed hard as an IMAX event. The official IMAX movie page lists The Mandalorian and Grogu as a Filmed For IMAX release and confirms the full theatrical release date…
Jon Favreau Used Apple Vision Pro to Build Mandalorian & Grogu for IMAX
Jon Favreau has revealed one of the stranger and more interesting bits of tech behind The Mandalorian & Grogu: he used Apple Vision Pro to preview how the movie’s IMAX shots would actually look in a theater-sized frame. In an interview clip highlighted by multiple outlets, Favreau said they built software so he could put on the headset, sit in a virtual IMAX auditorium, and view the full aspect ratio while lining up shots. That is a pretty smart solution to a very real movie problem. Favreau’s explanation was simple: if you are making an IMAX movie, watching footage on a normal monitor is not the same thing as seeing what audiences will actually get on a giant screen. He said the team layered custom software on top of Apple Vision Pro so he could review takes as if he were already in an IMAX theater, then judge framing based…
Lucasfilm Turns 55 Today — and That Is a Pretty Wild Star Wars Milestone
Before there was Star Wars, before ILM rewired blockbuster filmmaking, and before Lucasfilm became one of the most important names in modern franchise history, it was just a company George Lucas started on April 20, 1971. That means Lucasfilm turns 55 today. Lucasfilm’s own company history says George Lucas incorporated Lucasfilm in 1971 after making THX 1138, creating the company as a way to support his future projects. A new anniversary post from ILM adds a more precise date, noting that Lucasfilm was established on April 20, 1971, in Mill Valley, California, when Lucas was just 26 years old. And honestly, that is a bigger anniversary than it might first sound. Before Star Wars was even Star Wars It is easy to think of Lucasfilm purely as “the Star Wars company,” but that came later. In 1971, this was basically George Lucas building a home for the work he wanted…
Martin Scorsese’s Mandalorian & Grogu Cameo Is Very Real
Of all the names you might expect to pop up in a Star Wars movie, Martin Scorsese was probably not near the top of the list. But according to SFX magazine, via comments from director Jon Favreau, the legendary filmmaker really does have a cameo in The Mandalorian & Grogu, where he voices an alien shopkeeper seen in the film’s trailer. And honestly, that is already one of the strangest and best little details attached to this movie so far. Kathleen Kennedy made it happen Favreau says the cameo came together thanks to Kathleen Kennedy, who knew Scorsese personally and was able to reach out directly. According to Favreau, Kennedy “called him up,” Scorsese said yes, and Favreau then got to direct him himself. That alone is a pretty wild sentence in Star Wars terms. It is not every day you get one of cinema’s most famous directors stepping into…
Star Wars Celebration 2027 Tickets Go on Sale May 6 — Here’s What They Cost
If you were waiting for the moment Star Wars Celebration 2027 stopped being a distant dream and became a real money problem, here it is. Official ticket details are now live for Star Wars Celebration Los Angeles 2027, with tickets going on sale May 6 for the event’s April 1–4, 2027 run at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The official Celebration site also confirms the full pricing breakdown, including adult, kids, and Jedi Master VIP options. The big number: 4-day passes are $260.99 For adults, a 4-day ticket costs $260.99. Single-day adult tickets are listed at $76 for Thursday and $91 each for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Kids tickets are cheaper, with a 4-day pass at $105.99, while single-day kids tickets cost $36 for Thursday and $46 for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then there is the premium tier for people who believe sleep, budgeting, and moderation are for other fandoms….
The Maul Gap: Why Shadow Lord’s 18 BBY Setting Matters
For a Star Wars show built around one of the franchise’s angriest survivors, Maul: Shadow Lord picked a very smart place to land. The series is set in 18 BBY, about a year after Revenge of the Sith and the fall of the Republic. That alone makes it more than just another “Maul is back” project. It drops him into one of the ugliest, most unstable corners of the timeline: the moment when the Jedi are broken, the Empire is tightening its grip, and the galaxy is still trying to figure out what just happened. GamesRadar and Fantha Tracks both place the series in 18 BBY, while official Star Wars material describes the show as following Maul after The Clone Wars as he tries to rebuild his criminal power. That matters because Maul’s story has always had a weirdly large hole in the middle. We know who he was in…
Andor Lands a Peabody Nomination — And That Feels Exactly Right
There are awards that scream hype, and then there are awards that quietly tell you a show actually mattered. Andor just picked up a nomination at the 86th Peabody Awards, with the official nominees list placing the series in the Entertainment category. Fantha Tracks spotlighted the news on April 14, adding another nice little victory lap for one of the most critically respected Star Wars projects of the Disney era. That is a pretty big deal. The Peabody Awards are not the kind of honors people usually associate with lightsabers, bounty hunters, or giant space worms. They tend to reward storytelling with weight, ideas, and craft. So seeing Andor turn up there feels less like a surprise and more like a formal confirmation of something Star Wars fans have been arguing for a while: this series did not just look good or sound prestige-adjacent. It genuinely hit on a different…
Mark Hamill Says Star Wars Is in Good Hands With Dave Filoni
As Star Wars edges closer to its 50th anniversary, Mark Hamill is doing what very few people connected to this franchise can do: looking backward and forward at the same time. In a new USA Today interview, Hamill reflected on the sheer weirdness of hitting the half-century mark since the original movie began filming in 1976, admitting the milestone makes him “feel old.” That part is pure nostalgia fuel. But the more interesting bit for where Star Wars is heading now is what he said about Dave Filoni. Hamill is clearly backing Filoni According to coverage of the interview, Hamill said he “can’t think of better hands” for Star Wars than Filoni’s, and pointed to one big reason why: Filoni learned directly from George Lucas. Hamill said Lucas was a mentor to Filoni, which in his view means Filoni understands George’s creative sensibility in a way that really matters for…
Sam Witwer Says He’d Return as Starkiller “In an Instant”
Sam Witwer just tossed a fresh log onto one of Star Wars fandom’s oldest fires. Speaking to Polygon, Witwer said that if Lucasfilm ever asked him to return as Starkiller, he would “shave my head in an instant” and do it happily. That is not a canon announcement, obviously. It is also not a casting rumor. But it is a very clear reminder that the man who helped make Starkiller iconic is still completely up for it. And honestly, that is enough to get people talking again. The door is not open — but it is definitely not locked from his side Witwer is already back in a big Star Wars spotlight thanks to Maul: Shadow Lord, where he has returned to one of his most closely associated roles in the franchise. So this was not some random convention nostalgia hit from a guy who has not touched Star Wars…
Mara Jade Still Has No Path Back Into Star Wars Canon
For years, Star Wars fans have treated Mara Jade’s canon return like one of those rumors that never fully dies. This week, that hope took another hit. According to Popverse’s coverage of a MegaCon 2026 panel, Star Wars author Claudia Gray said she had asked Lucasfilm about bringing Mara Jade into canon and got a firm no. Right next to her, Timothy Zahn reportedly added that he had asked too. Same answer. That is a pretty blunt update for a character who has spent decades near the top of the Star Wars wish list. Mara Jade keeps running into the same wall If this sounds familiar, that is because it is. Popverse also reported back in September 2024 that Zahn said he kept nudging Lucasfilm about writing Mara Jade into the current canon, and that the responses landed somewhere between “no” and “heck no.” The new Claudia Gray quote makes…
Sam Witwer Says Maul: Shadow Lord Was Built for Newcomers — and Compares Maul to Jack Torrance
Sam Witwer has now said the quiet part out loud: Maul: Shadow Lord is not just a reward for longtime Clone Wars diehards. In a new YouTube interview, Witwer said the series was shaped so even people with little or no Star Wars background can jump in and understand it, which is a pretty revealing statement about what Lucasfilm seems to want this show to do. That matters because Maul has never exactly been a beginner-friendly character. His timeline is messy, his rage is old, and half his best material is spread across movies, animation, and a surprise live-action cameo. But Witwer said Shadow Lord was constructed “with an eye toward” new viewers, with the story designed to explain itself rather than demand homework first. That lines up with the official setup for the series, which places Maul on Janix in the early Imperial era as he tries to rebuild…
13 Years Later, the Shutdown of LucasArts Still Feels Like a Brutal Turning Point for Star Wars Games
Thirteen years ago this week, Disney pulled the plug on LucasArts’ internal game development and pushed the company into a licensing model instead. It was the kind of corporate sentence that sounds tidy on paper and disastrous everywhere else. The bigger headline at the time was not just that LucasArts as a game studio was effectively over. It was that two of its active Star Wars projects, Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault, went down with it. Lucasfilm’s official line back then was that the move would “minimize the company’s risk” while opening the door to a broader portfolio of Star Wars games through outside partners. That may have made business sense in Burbank boardroom language, but for players it mostly translated to this: one of gaming’s most storied Star Wars labels stopped building games, around 150 staff were affected, and two intriguing projects were suddenly dead in…
How StarWars.com Changed Over the Years, According to the Wayback Machine
If you’ve ever wanted proof that the internet used to look like it was held together by duct tape, optimism, and a lot of beige, the best place to start is the Wayback Machine That archive is basically a time machine for the web, and when you run StarWars.com through it, you’re not just looking at old homepage designs. You’re watching Star Wars learn how to exist online. Over the years, the official site went from a pretty modest promo page into a full-blown franchise mothership packed with news, videos, Databank entries, Disney+ tie-ins, games, and enough navigation tabs to make a 1998 modem cry. The fun part is that the changes on StarWars.com don’t just reflect web design trends. They track the changing priorities of Star Wars itself. In one era, the site was all about movie hype. In another, it became a fan hub. Later, it shifted into…
Disney+ Announces Tales of the Moisture Farmer for May 4 Release
Lucasfilm has apparently found its next great Star Wars story, and this time it is not about Jedi, Sith, bounty hunters, clones, or criminal syndicates. It is about something far more dangerous: trying to keep a moisture farm alive on Tatooine. According to a teaser image now circulating online, Tales of the Moisture Farmer is set to arrive on May 4 as a four-episode Disney+ event series, promising what may be the most aggressively grounded Star Wars project ever pitched. If the title is real, the series looks aimed squarely at the most underserved corner of the galaxy: overworked Outer Rim labor, broken vaporators, and the kind of dry agricultural despair only twin suns can provide. A Smaller, Stranger Kind of Star Wars On paper, this sounds ridiculous. Which is exactly why it sounds weirdly plausible. Lucasfilm has spent the last few years exploring more specific corners of the Star…
Grogu Just Took Over The Mandalorian and Grogu Promo Push
Lucasfilm’s latest The Mandalorian and Grogu video is not a trailer, not a TV spot, and not exactly a standard featurette either. Titled “Grogu Joins the Conversation,” the new promo leans hard into the movie’s safest marketing weapon: put Grogu in the room, let everyone else orbit around him, and watch the internet do the rest. Fantha Tracks describes the clip as Grogu sitting down with Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, and Jon Favreau to discuss the film, while StarWars.com is using the same video as a featured push for the movie. This Is Less About Plot and More About Vibe That is what makes the clip interesting. It is not really trying to reveal major new story details. Instead, it feels like Lucasfilm settling into the tone of the campaign and reminding people that The Mandalorian and Grogu is not just another Disney+ extension anymore. This is the big-screen version…
The Mandalorian and Grogu Just Crashed a Savannah Bananas Game, and Honestly It Makes Weird Sense
The road to The Mandalorian and Grogu is taking some delightfully strange turns. This weekend, Din Djarin and Grogu made a surprise appearance at a Savannah Bananas game in Anaheim, with Fantha Tracks reporting that the duo showed up during the Bananas’ matchup against the Indianapolis Clowns. It is the kind of crossover that sounds made up until you remember modern Star Wars marketing has fully embraced the “put Grogu everywhere” philosophy. And this was not some totally random one-off. Disney had already turned March 26 into “Savannah Bananas Day” at Disneyland Resort, with performances at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, plus a Bananas stop in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge before the baseball festivities rolled into Angel Stadium. In other words, the Mando-and-Grogu cameo looks a lot less like chaos and a lot more like a carefully timed Disney-Star Wars-Banana Ball brand mashup. Wild sentence. Real sentence. A smarter promo…