‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ vs. ‘Backrooms’ Box Office Numbers – How the Two Movies Are Reshaping the 2026 Summer Box Office

The summer box office is officially in full swing, and two wildly different films are making Hollywood rethink everything it thought it knew about what audiences want. One arrives carrying the weight of a legendary franchise returning to theaters after a seven-year absence. The other was born from a creepypasta on 4chan and a teenager’s YouTube channel. The results, somehow, are equally extraordinary.

Star Wars has not had a theatrical release since 2019, when Episode IX brought the sequel trilogy to a close. Now Din Djarin and his tiny green companion are making their big-screen debut, and the galaxy far, far away is once again front and center in the summer conversation, whether fans are thrilled about the numbers or not.

‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ and the Star Wars Box Office Pressure Test

Directed by Jon Favreau, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ follows the titular bounty hunter and his young companion as they attempt to save Rotta the Hutt, Jabba’s muscular son, from the clutches of a warlord gangster. The film stars Pedro Pascal, Jeremy Allen White, Sigourney Weaver, and Jonny Coyne.

The film is written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, and is produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Bryce, Jon Favreau, and Dave Filoni, with music by Ludwig Göransson. The IMAX presentation was designed to signal that this is not a Disney+ movie that wandered into a multiplex. It is a theatrical event built from the ground up for the biggest screen possible.

For the first time in nearly seven years, Star Wars fans finally had a reason to go to the movies, and plenty of them showed up. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ collected $82 million in its opening weekend and an estimated $102 million through the four-day Memorial Day frame. Those ticket sales are aligned with expectations, though box office analysts are mixed on the results. On one hand, it is significant for any film to debut above $100 million in post-pandemic times. On the other, Star Wars is one of Hollywood’s preeminent film properties, so there is an expectation of a certain level of box office.

The Mandalorian and Grogu opened lower than 2018’s ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ domestically, though global returns reached $167 million with $69 million from 51 offshore territories. The film was made under former Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy but is executive produced and co-written by Dave Filoni, now serving as co-Lucasfilm Head, a fact that carries significant weight with the core fanbase.

The ‘Backrooms’ Budget Miracle and the Rise of YouTube Horror

A24’s ‘Backrooms’ was developed with a budget of just under $10 million, yet it is now projected to earn around two times that production budget in its opening weekend alone. The numbers are staggering for a studio that built its reputation on prestige slow burns and platform releases, and the tracking only continued to climb.

‘Backrooms’ is poised to shatter the record for A24’s biggest debut to date, a benchmark that belongs to Alex Garland’s 2024 thriller ‘Civil War’ with $25.5 million. Many major A24 releases, including ‘Marty Supreme,’ ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ and ‘Hereditary,’ opened in just a few theaters to build buzz before launching nationwide. ‘Backrooms’ is eschewing a platform release and will instead debut in 3,400 North American venues.

Tracking comps initially indicated a breakthrough performance with buzz suggesting an opening weekend on par with 2024’s ‘Longlegs’ and 2023’s ‘Civil War,’ but those opening weekend expectations more than doubled as exhibitors scrambled to add showtimes to meet demand.

The trend continued to rise on the Wednesday ahead of release, leading analysts to believe ‘Backrooms’ could potentially outperform forecasts and reach up to the $65 million mark, comparable to ‘Scream 7’ and ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.’

Kane Parsons and the New Face of Horror Filmmaking

The film is directed by Kane Parsons, and was originally conceived as a creepypasta story that went viral after being uploaded in 2019. That story first went cinematic in 2022 with the release of the short film ‘The Backrooms’ (Found Footage), which has since surpassed 75 million views. Its success led to Parsons creating several follow-up short films, with over 190 million views collectively, and eventually, A24 took interest.

The film follows furniture store owner Clark, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who discovers a seemingly endless liminal dimension in the basement of his shop.

When he goes to investigate a power glitch in the basement, he “noclips” out of reality and into the Backrooms, prompting his therapist, played by Renate Reinsve, to investigate. The cast also includes Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Lukita Maxwell.

Parsons released a short film on YouTube in 2022 called ‘The Backrooms’ (Found Footage) when he was just 16, based on creepypasta images from a 4chan image thread released several years prior. The leap from a teenager filming horror in his backyard to commanding a full A24 feature with Academy Award nominees is the kind of origin story that Hollywood does not produce very often, and audiences are responding to it.

Low-Budget Horror vs. Franchise Tentpoles: What the Numbers Say

‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ was less expensive than prior Star Wars films, costing roughly $165 million to produce, and seems to have far better word-of-mouth from critics and audiences than ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story,’ which left the big screen with just $392 million globally and became the first Star Wars movie to lose money in its theatrical run.

The broader trend is undeniable. ‘Backrooms’ follows the success of ‘Obsession,’ a horror breakout from creator Curry Barker, that has generated a remarkable $62 million in North America and $84.6 million worldwide after just two weekends of release. ‘Obsession’ was produced for less than $1 million and then acquired by Focus for $15 million, and it will easily become one of the year’s most profitable releases.

Things have largely been very encouraging at the box office in 2026, particularly after 2025 failed to cross the $9 billion domestic mark. The summer has been delivering the goods, and the next big hit is not a superhero movie or another franchise tentpole, but a horror film from a director who is not even old enough to legally drink. The industry is watching closely as a galaxy-spanning franchise and an internet-born horror experiment go head to head for the same multiplex real estate.

Jon Favreau noted that for a big movie like ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu,’ the team had to be open not just to the audience familiar with everything that happened on Disney+, but also to a new audience that might want to experience Star Wars in a theater for the first time. That dual mandate, serving existing fans while recruiting newcomers, is exactly the same challenge Kane Parsons faces with ‘Backrooms,’ proving that whether the universe is made of stars or fluorescent-lit yellow corridors, the key to breaking through is the same.

Whether you are more likely to buy a ticket for Baby Yoda or for whatever is humming behind that mysterious basement door, tell us in the comments: which film do you think will be remembered as the more important box office story of the summer?