I’m going to say this plainly: the real problem for Disney is not that critics suddenly became political. It’s that The Mandalorian & Grogu hit theaters and reminded people how thin this version of Star Wars has become.
The movie opened on May 22, 2026, and yes, it technically took the top spot. But “number one” can hide a lot. Box Office Mojo shows an $81.7 million domestic opening weekend and about $98.1 million over the four-day Memorial Day frame. That is not a disaster in the absolute sense. It is a much bigger problem in the Star Wars sense. This was supposed to feel like the return of a major theatrical event. Instead, it landed like a stretched-out streaming product that got promoted into a feature.
That’s the part Disney should be nervous about.
The most telling thing is the review split. Rotten Tomatoes had the film sitting at 62% with critics and 88% with audiences when the early reaction wave settled in. That’s not the profile of a universally hated movie. It’s worse for Disney than that. It’s the profile of a movie people find watchable, mildly enjoyable, and instantly forgettable. Critics called out the thin story and the fan-service dependence. Honestly, that tracks with what a lot of viewers felt walking out of the theater. This thing doesn’t play like a bold new chapter. It plays like three decent Disney+ episodes fused together and sold back to the public as a cinematic occasion.
That is not what Star Wars is supposed to be.
Now let’s get to Josh D’Amaro. He did officially take over as Disney CEO on March 18, 2026, replacing Bob Iger. So this is one of the first big franchise tests of his era, whether he likes it or not. And here’s where things get messy: there are viral claims floating around that D’Amaro blamed politics, critics, and the broader culture for the backlash. I have not seen a clean public source for the more explosive quotes being passed around online, so I’m not going to pretend they’re locked-down fact.
But even if you strip all that out, the mood around Disney still feels like damage control.
Why? Because when a company starts leaning on culture-war fog every time a major brand underperforms, that usually means it doesn’t want to talk about the product itself. And the product here is the issue. The complaint most people have with The Mandalorian & Grogu is not that it is too provocative, too political, or too radical. It’s that it feels safe, low-stakes, overfamiliar, and visually flatter than a movie carrying the Star Wars name should ever be.
That should terrify Disney more than any angry YouTube comment section.
Grogu is still a merch machine. Pedro Pascal still has draw. Jon Favreau still knows how to package a sellable premise. But none of that changes the larger problem: Disney has spent years training audiences to treat Star Wars as background content. You can’t flood the zone with streaming-era material, then act shocked when the theatrical brand no longer feels sacred.
And that is why this matters. Not because one movie had a soft-ish start. Not because critics got mean. It matters because this was supposed to be the moment Star Wars looked big again. Instead, it looked familiar. Manageable. Disposable.
That’s the danger.
If I were sitting in Burbank right now, I wouldn’t be asking how to blame the backlash. I’d be asking a much uglier question: what happens when audiences stop believing that Star Wars belongs on the big screen in the first place?
Sources
- The Walt Disney Company: Josh D’Amaro named CEO
- Box Office Mojo: Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
- Rotten Tomatoes: first reviews roundup for The Mandalorian and Grogu
⚠️ 🛠️ run for f → run do → print text → print lines 1-180 from $f → run done (agent) failed
