The Mandalorian and Grogu gets a Star Wars Day trailer — and a May release date
Star Wars is back in cinemas for the first time since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, and Lucasfilm picked May 4 — Star Wars Day — to drop a new trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu. The film carries a reported budget of $165 million, the lowest for any theatrical Star Wars release, and lands on May 22, 2026 in IMAX and standard formats across the US and UK.
The trailer
The new footage leans heavily on franchise history — roughly half the clip pulls from earlier Star Wars films to establish Grogu's connection to the Jedi. That lineage looks set to be central to the plot. Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his small green companion face a gauntlet of threats: remnants of the fallen Galactic Empire, the Hutt syndicate, bounty hunters, and giant robots. New to the cast are Sigourney Weaver as Colonel Ward and Jeremy Allen White voicing Rotta the Hutt, alongside Jonny Coyne as an Imperial warlord.
Streaming fans, meet the big screen
Director Jon Favreau has positioned the film as a standalone entry point — "Season 1, Episode 1" in his words — designed to work for viewers who've never seen the Disney+ series. That's a deliberate pitch to the casual audience, not just the fanbase that followed Mando through three TV seasons. Whether it lands is another question: tracking currently puts the opening weekend around $80 million over the four-day Memorial Day period, well below Solo: A Star Wars Story's $150 million opening, per British Brief.
The modest budget makes sense in that context. Lucasfilm is treating this less like a blockbuster event and more like a proof of concept — can a streaming-native Star Wars story translate to a theatrical audience after a seven-year gap? Wikipedia's production notes confirm the $165 million figure and the full cast.
What to know before May 22
The Mandalorian and Grogu opens May 22, 2026 in the US and UK, in IMAX and standard screens. Advance tickets are already live via Fandango and ODEON. You don't need to have watched the series — but three seasons of backstory won't hurt.
