Disney has released a trailer for first big-screen Star Wars project in six years.
Yet reactions to the footage from The Mandalorian & Grogu (trailer below) is being dominated by comments slamming the studio over its decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel.
The film is a spinoff of Disney+’s The Mandalorian TV show and stars Pedro Pascal as The Mandalorian (a.k.a. Din Djarin) who travels the galaxy with his tiny ward Grogu (a.k.a. Baby Yoda).
The action-packed trailer is a bit of a different vibe for a Star Wars film, and feels very lighthearted and family friendly. Baby Yoda gets the most screen time in the footage, and nearly every character is either wearing a mask or a creature or a robot — the only clear human face shown is Sigourney Weaver as a Rebel Alliance colonel.
The trailer was supposed to be released last week but was pushed repeatedly — possibly due to Disney’s ongoing Kimmel mess dominating the headlines.
Yet with the Kimmel situation still unresolved, commenters accused the studio of trying to distract from the scandal. While the top-rated comment among the 4,000 already posted on YouTube was a jab at the film resurrecting Mando’s destroyed ship (“Somehow the Razor Crest returned”), the second-highest rated comment was “Disney Execs: “Everyone stop talking about Jimmy Kimmel! Look at the shiny new Star Wars movie!”
Here’s a sample of other comments: “If only Disney could be as brave as their characters.” And: “I don’t have Disney+ anymore. This is the way.” And: “Disney saw everyone cancelling subscriptions and decided to drop a trailer.” And: “I can’t wait til Pedro Pascal goes on Jimmy Kimmel to promote this movie. Oh, wait.”
Awkardly for the studio, Pascal was among 400 celebrities to sign an open letter from the ACLU released moments after the trailer condemning the suspension of Kimmel.
Other comments on the film say the footage looks more like a season of a TV show. “I didn’t know this was a movie until last five seconds of the trailer,” one wrote.
This marks the first Star Wars movie since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker will be directed by the show’s creator Jon Favreau and is written by Favreau and Dave Filoni.
The film also stars Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt (son of crime lord Jabba the Hutt) and Jonny Coyne as an Imperial warlord.
The Rise of Skywalker bowed a month after The Mandalorian premiered on Disney+, instantly becoming the streaming service’s flagship show. Three seasons of the series have been released leading up to the movie, which is produced by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Filoni.
The Mandalorian was credited with proving that Star Wars could work on the small screen. In an ironic twist, now that same title has the weight of proving that Star Wars can still work on the big screen. Star Wars films had a downward trajectory at the box office which had resulted in Disney dialing back on their production. The Mandalorian & Grogu will be a test as to whether the decades-old franchise still has enough firing power to bring the masses into theaters.
Lucasfilm has another theatrical Star Wars title in the near-term pipeline, Star Wars: Starfighter, a stand-alone movie directed by Shawn Levy which is set roughly five years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. The film stars Ryan Gosling, Matt Smith, Flynn Gray, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings and Amy Adams. Disney is set to release the film on May 28, 2027.
Neither Favreau nor Filoni have said much publicly about The Mandalorian & Grogu. But last year at D23, Favreau said on the red carpet, “To come back together and have the scale and scope of the big screen to tell a story with characters people already know in a brand-new adventure that can … part of what we’ve set out to do is something that rewards people who have been with the show since the beginning, who have been with Star Wars since the beginning. But since we’re on the big screen, it’s an opportunity to reach out to a whole new audience with a whole new adventure and certainly with Grogu — certainly all the kids know who that is, and this is an opportunity to bring them to the theater.”
The Mandalorian & Grogu will be released on May 22, 2026.
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