Star Wars Desperately Needs To Learn One Key Lesson From Its $393 Million Box Office Bomb

Summary Star Wars must avoid repeating past mistakes, like releasing against MCU blockbusters, to ensure box office success.

Solo: A Star Wars Story bombed at the box office due to poor marketing, a large budget, and its proximity to Avengers: Infinity War.

The Mandalorian & Grogu is expected to release in the same month as Avengers: Doomsday, meaning the former must move dates to avoid repeating history.

Star Wars needs to learn from past mistakes by avoiding the franchise's biggest box office bomb. For the most part, Star Wars has been one of the few Hollywood franchises with constant box-office success. Star Wars' box office receipts almost always look healthy, ranking among some of the most successful in cinematic history. Naturally, Lucasfilm will be hoping to see this success continue as upcoming Star Wars movies return the galaxy far, far away to the big screen for the first time since 2019.

Although the franchise's success has largely been on the small screen of late and upcoming Star Wars TV shows will continue this, lightsabers and X-Wings will finally be seen in theaters once more. From the upcoming story of The Mandalorian & Grogu to the future of the timeline being explored in Rey's New Jedi Order movie, Star Wars' cinematic future looks bright once more. That said, recent news from Disney's other major franchise means Star Wars will need to learn from the one movie in the series' history which failed to replicate the box office success of its peers.

Confirmed Upcoming Star Wars Movies Director The Mandalorian & Grogu Jon Favreau Rey's New Jedi Order Movie Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy New Republic Movie Dave Filoni Dawn of the Jedi Movie James Mangold

Solo Was Far Too Close To A Massive MCU Movie... & History Is Repeating

Solo Suffered Thanks To Avengers: Infinity War

Custom image by Andy Behbakht

The one Star Wars movie that did not succeed at the box office was 2018's Solo: A Star Wars Story. While a large portion of this failure can be attributed to the extensive reshoots that reshaped the film and inflated the budget beyond $300 million, Disney made the mistake of putting the film in competition with a milestone MCU movie: Avengers: Infinity War. Solo opened in theaters on May 25, 2018, only one month after Avengers: Infinity War was released worldwide.

Given that Avengers: Infinity War is currently the sixth-highest-grossing movie in history, it is evident that Solo faced an uphill battle. Infinity War was one of the biggest cinematic events of the 2010s, meaning Solo was always going to struggle to keep up with the insane box office run the former undertook. Unfortunately for Lucasfilm, it seems as though history is repeating itself.

One of the biggest movie reveals of San Diego Comic-Con 2024 was that Avengers 5, now retitled Avengers: Doomsday, will be released in May 2026. This is the same month that The Mandalorian & Grogu is expected to be released in theaters, repeating the history of Solo going up against Infinity War. With this in mind, Lucasfilm has to learn from previous mistakes.

Star Wars Has Simply Got To Move The Mandalorian & Grogu

Star Wars Cannot Compete With The Overwhelming Strength Of The MCU

Given that history is repeating itself, Star Wars has to move The Mandalorian & Grogu from the May 2026 spot it currently holds. Solo proved how difficult it would be for any movie to go up against an Avengers film, especially one as anticipated as Avengers: Doomsday. As such, The Mandalorian & Grogu's release date should either be moved forward to the tail end of 2025 or pushed back to December 2026.

This could even lead The Mandalorian & Grogu to be pushed back to 2027, which would celebrate Star Wars' 50th anniversary...

Admittedly, the latter has stiff competition with Avatar 4 and Dune 3 scheduled for that month. This could even lead The Mandalorian & Grogu to be pushed back to 2027, which would celebrate Star Wars' 50th anniversary. Regardless of what date it picked, it is clear that Star Wars must learn from mistakes of the past and move The Mandalorian & Grogu away from Avengers: Doomsday to give the former the chance it deserves to succeed.