Mando and Grogu are making the jump from streaming to cinema, and director Jon Favreau says the move was about more than just going bigger.

Jon Favreau Talks ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’

Disney Legend Jon Favreau is opening up about bringing Din Djarin and Grogu to theaters in Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first big-screen adventure for the duo introduced in The Mandalorian on Disney+.

In a new D23 interview, Favreau discussed why the story made sense as a theatrical release, how Grogu continues to evolve, and how the film connects with new Star Wars experiences at Disney Parks.

The film stars Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, with Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White also among the cast. Favreau co-wrote the film with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, while Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Bryce, Favreau, and Filoni serve as producers. Ludwig Göransson returns to provide the music.

Speaking with D23, Favreau said the timing felt right because Star Wars had not been on the big screen for several years, and in the meantime, Mando and Grogu had already become widely recognizable through Disney+ as one of the platform’s most successful original series. He noted that, in crafting the film, he held a keen awareness of how pervasive the series’ characters have become in pop culture, and how best to approach the big-screen story for young fans and newcomers.

These characters have permeated the zeitgeist. There are fans that have been by our side since the very beginning—we owe them a lot, and they’ve spread the word. But there’s a whole category of people, even younger viewers—somebody who’s 12 years old now, seven years ago they weren’t old enough to go to the movies and see a Star Wars film. But they might know the character; they may have played with a Grogu toy, and now they might be ready to be introduced to this world.

Favreau also explained that the original plan had been to continue the story with a fourth season of The Mandalorian, but after the Hollywood strikes, the idea of a movie came into focus. Because of that shift, he said the story could not simply assume that every moviegoer had watched all three previous seasons. According to Favreau, the film needed to welcome both established fans and audience members who may be seeing Star Wars in theaters for the first time.

Favreau emphasized the communal aspect of seeing Star Wars in a theater, saying that it was central to his own memories of the franchise. He described theatrical moviegoing as a shared experience, different from watching something at home or on a phone.

We wanted to do something that, for one, delivered on the spectacle of what a movie theater could deliver. We had to make a bigger scale. We had lean into practical builds; complicated, interesting set pieces. 

The interview also connected the movie to Disney Parks, particularly the new The Mandalorian and Grogu mission now featuring on Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Favreau highlighted that the interplay between filmmaking and themed experiences as “one of the nice things about working with Disney”:

There’s an opportunity to align a lot of these experiences together—and sometimes they even share technology. The technology that’s used in in Smuggler’s Run is Unreal Engine, a game engine, that we were using for The Mandalorian series; it’s also what we used in VR for planning and designing the sets…

So when I worked on Smuggler’s Run, I pulled in stuff and shared it with the Imagineers—all the assets that we had built for the series. Being able to design levels; have more biomes and environments that you could explore because we had already explored a lot of it… It helps to reduce the time curve.

Favreau also pointed to Disney Cruise Line as another place where these interconnected Star Wars experiences can continue to grow, saying Disney is “just scratching the surface” of what is possible when stories remain consistent across platforms.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is in theaters now, having premiered just last week. Critical reception for the film has been mixed following its preview period and opening weekend.

You can check out the final trailer below:

Have you seen the film yet, and if so, what did you think? Share your own review with us on social media!

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