Per Variety, ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’ cost $165M.

[I really, really, really, really, doubt this is the case](https://old.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1nnpzuk/some_budget_clarifications_for_mando_and_grogu/) but it’s clearly the number they’re running with.

let’s see if we can get more specific.

* “NET CALIFORNIA QE” = 144.7M = $145M = **$20M** in outstanding payments.

First let’s look at non-CA QE

* [John Favreau signed an ‘insane’ deal post Mando S1 – from puck and discussed years ago on an accompanying “The Town” podcast](https://puck.news/disney-has-a-weakness-in-the-streaming-wars/) – this is not part of the ~~wallfacer plan~~ $145M net QE. If you want to say there’s 0 opportunity cost here relative to a season 4 role for Favreau that miiiiiight be true but he’s clearly getting millions as a director/producer

> Favreau originally signed on to do just one season of The Mandalorian, so when it became Disney+’s signature series, he extracted an insane deal to continue, with all kinds of bonuses and incentives for writing or directing individual episodes

I don’t really see a case to not call this at least $5-$10M.

* A new series regular contract for SW spinoffs runs between $1.25-$2.5M per Gina Careno’s lawsuit against Disney [6 seasons at 150k-250k x 8-10 episode seasons – in contrast to Careno being credited pre-Rangers as a Guest Actor getting paid 25k per episode]

* So basically, if Pascal’s covered under that initial contract it’s at 2.5M; however, I doubt it’s that simple and, if not, that’s more likely to be >= $10M (what he’s paid for a season of Last of Us/Fantastic Four according to poor quality sourcing)

There’s a real chance those two people alone account for the $20M “missing” from the budget leaving all other ABL unaccounted for as well as all non-California costs.

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* Inside Out 2 offered only $100k to non-Amy Poehler voice actors (leading to a lot of people not returning for the sequel), so I imagine that’s the ballpark for White’s salary for Rotto the Hutt (aka this isn’t a Vin Diesel as Groot style scenario). Weaver, however, strikes me as unlikely to be getting lowballed especially as she’s likely signed for a reoccuring role. Feels like you should look at Nick Fury/JL Dreyfus style paydays in Avengers/MCU films as comps which would give us low 7 figures (but that could be too aggressive).

* all other actors + remaining ABL costs – real money but I don’t have a good proxy to estimate.

Next let’s look at Non California spending

* Lucasfilm’s canadian branches explicitly mention Mando & Grogu as a significant project they’re working on in a 2025 article (which also just makes conceptual sense).
* Prior seasons of Mando had Canadian and Australian tax incentives (we can’t see amount spent) but I see no reason to assume that isn’t the case here.

So, 412.5 million to break-even.


This is an estimated and not the reported budget. Please let’s not act like Disney isn’t known for correcting their budgets upwards some months later.

I have a feeling this movie is going to make more domestically than internationally, I can see it ending up somewhere around $400M.

It won’t bomb, but it’ll flop.

Do we believe this budget or will we find out in 2 years the actual cost?

Another Solo

Mega marketing spend? I’ve barely seen any ads for this movie