Jon Favreau isn't sure why he was asked to make 'The Mandalorian and Grogu,' but he's sure Baby Yoda had something to do with it

At a glance:

• Jon Favreau says he wasn't sure why he was asked to direct The Mandalorian and Grogu, but suspects the global popularity of Baby Yoda (Grogu) made the characters recognizable even to non-Star Wars audiences.
• The film hits theaters on May 22, nearly seven years after Star Wars last appeared in movie theaters.
• Favreau credits The Mandalorian's launch on Disney+ for building a bridge to new viewers, though he acknowledges the show's luster has faded after its divisive third season.

Why the movie exists at all

It's been almost seven years since Star Wars was in movie theaters, but that drought hasn't been for a lack of effort from Lucasfilm. The entire period has been jam-packed with project announcement after project announcement, each one hoping to be the film that would finally herald the galaxy far, far away's return to the box office. In many ways, it was almost a surprise when the project most likely to break that dry spell came out of nowhere and became The Mandalorian and Grogu — a surprise that the film's director, Jon Favreau, is still processing.

In a recent conversation with GamesRadar, Favreau opened up about the chain of reasoning behind the movie. "I'm not sure what, exactly, why we were asked to do this," he said, expressing genuine uncertainty about why he was tapped to bring the small-screen hit to the big screen. But he did land on a theory: the "and Grogu" part of the title. Favreau suspects that the massive cultural footprint of Baby Yoda gave these characters an outsized appeal, even to people who had never watched a minute of Star Wars.

"Baby Yoda was everywhere," Favreau continued. "And these are two characters that were used to launch Disney+, and we made no assumptions when the Mandalorian TV show came on that anybody had seen any Star Wars before."

How Baby Yoda became the key to a new audience

Favreau's point is well taken. When The Mandalorian premiered in 2019, it was designed to be an entry point — the show made no assumptions about viewers' prior knowledge of the franchise. The world it created, the way its characters presented themselves, and the tone of the storytelling were all crafted to feel authentic to Star Wars while remaining accessible to newcomers. That deliberate openness is what Favreau says he appreciates about how Star Wars fans embraced the series.

But it also created an inroad for people who may never have watched Star Wars on television. Baby Yoda's ubiquity — on merchandise, social media, memes, and everywhere in between — meant that even casual audiences recognized Grogu. That recognition, Favreau argues, is likely why the studio saw an opportunity to translate the characters from streaming to the big screen. "I think there's an opportunity to present Star Wars to a new audience using these characters as well," he said.

The challenge of recapturing the show's early magic

There is, however, a tension in Favreau's reasoning. The Baby Yoda boom undeniably drove massive attention, but the luster The Mandalorian once had has worn off in the years since the show first aired. The third season in particular was more divisive, muddying Mandalore's waters and alienating some of the audience that had been drawn in by the show's initial charm.

What was once part of that charm — the sense that the series was isolated enough for unfamiliar audiences to be sucked in, and that people would trust a live-action Star Wars TV show could work — is all but gone at this point. The series increasingly wrapped itself in Star Wars ephemera and guest characters, leaning harder into franchise lore in ways that made it less approachable for newcomers. Favreau acknowledges this shift without dwelling on it, but it raises a real question: whether The Mandalorian and Grogu can rekindle the kind of broad appeal that made the show a cultural phenomenon.

What to watch next

The Mandalorian and Grogu hits theaters next week on May 22. Whether the film can entice that original wave of new viewers — and newcomers who only know Star Wars through Grogu — to the big screen remains to be seen. Favreau seems confident that the characters carry enough recognition to open the door, but the track record of franchise spin-offs attempting to replicate streaming-era magic at the box office is uneven at best.

For now, the May 22 release date is the deadline. The film's performance will determine not just whether this particular story works, but whether Lucasfilm has finally found the formula to bring Star Wars back to theaters after a nearly seven-year absence.