“Star Wars” returns to the big screen for the first time in seven years this weekend, riding the contrails of a Mandalorian’s jetpack.

Disney’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” tallied $12 million in Thursday night preview sales, the lowest collection of advance tickets in the franchise’s history, according to data from Comscore. “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was the previous low bar, with $14.1 million in preshow tickets back in 2018.

Box office analysts expect the film, based on the hit Disney+ show “The Mandalorian,” to generate around $80 million for its three-day opening weekend and around $95 million for the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. Some less conservative experts have estimated the three-day haul could be $95 million and the holiday weekend could draw $115 million.

That would be one of the smallest openings of a Star Wars film in modern cinematic history. “Solo” captured $84.4 million during its opening eight years ago. Since 2015, only “Solo” has opened to less than $100 million domestically, Comscore data shows.

“The Mandalorian and Grogu” will likely benefit from the popularity of the television show, the long Memorial Day weekend and limited competition from new titles, especially on premium large format screens.

It will also act as a stress test for future Star Wars theatrical releases amid a lackluster cinema run for Star Wars and Marvel, the tentpole franchises that helped Disney dominate the global box office in the 2010s. The studio has “Starfighter” arriving in cinemas in 2027 starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy.

New Star Wars titles have been absent from cinemas since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” The final film in the Skywalker Saga and third film in what has become known as the sequel trilogy generated more than $1 billion, but was widely panned by critics and fans. Disney and its Lucasfilm studio paused theatrical productions in favor of reestablishing the franchise on streaming service Disney+.

“The Mandalorian,” which premiered just a month before “The Rise of Skywalker,” was a runaway hit for the company and inspired a number of live-action Star Wars projects to get a series run instead of a theatrical one. These include “Andor,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Ahsoka,” “Skeleton Crew,” “The Acolyte” and “The Book of Boba Fett.”

Lucasfilm tapped director Jon Favreau — who worked alongside the newly minted head of the studio, Dave Filoni, to bring “The Mandalorian” to Disney+ — to helm “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” The feature film had a slightly smaller budget than typical Star Wars films, with the cost of production estimated to be around $165 million. Other Star Wars projects released theatrically in the previous decade had production budgets of $250 million or higher, according to data from The Numbers.

This means that “The Mandalorian and Grogu” has a smaller profitability threshold than previous titles from the franchise. Of course, those production budgets do not include marketing spending.

For parent company Disney, it’s not just about the box office numbers. The film has a robust consumer products launch tied to its release.

The Star Wars franchise has consistently been a strong seller at retail even without a theatrical release. So having new products across a variety of categories and brands could be a big boon for the company — especially after the character Grogu, known as “Baby Yoda,” was a runaway hit with fans.

Notably, following the 2015 release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the first of Lucasfilm’s latest Star Wars trilogy, Hasbro alone saw sales of Star Wars products reach nearly $500 million.

Disney is already doing tie-ins at its theme park locations, including specialized merchandise and a revamp of its Smugglers Run ride featuring Grogu.

Hollywood has lost one of its most lucrative theatrical markets. It’s unclear if it will ever win it back.

The Chinese box office was once a coveted space for American-made movies, so much so that studios produced films that would appeal directly to this international audience. But in the postpandemic cinema landscape, Hollywood hasn’t generated the strong ticket sales it once saw for its biggest blockbusters — and a waning relationship with Chinese cinemas is at least partly to blame.

The U.S.-China Film Agreement, struck in 2012 between the two governments, guaranteed 34 U.S. films would be released in China each year. That pact ended in 2017 and was never renewed or renegotiated. At the same time, China began expanding its local film production and instituting blackout dates to promote viewership of its homegrown titles. 

Add in strict censorship policies from the China Film Administration and recent political strains between the U.S. and China, and Hollywood films have faced several hurdles just to get distribution in the country post-Covid.

“I think that the kind of euphoria about the world’s largest market and thinking about China as a place that always creates a larger market for U.S. [intellectual property] is not accurate,” said Aynne Kokas, a professor at the University of Virginia and the author of “Hollywood Made in China.”

“[There are] constraints on the market in a couple of ways, first related to content control and not just content control in terms of censorship, but also in terms of control of distribution channels by the party,” Kokas said.

She said the film bureau will “turn on and off the levers of distribution based on the needs of the market.” If local Chinese films are doing well, the country will limit distribution access for foreign films. If there are gaps in film releases or releases aren’t selling as many tickets, it will open up the market.

In 2019, nine U.S. titles each generated more than $100 million at the Chinese box office, with Disney and Marvel Studio’s “Avengers: Endgame” collecting more than $600 million in the region, according to data from Comscore.

In the past five years combined, however, only 10 American films have generated more than $100 million in China, with only two topping $200 million.

The outlier is Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which tallied a record-breaking $650 million in the country following its 2025 release.

Box office analysts tell CNBC that this feat is likely an anomaly and studios and Wall Street shouldn’t expect a sudden resurgence of ticket sales for American-made fare in the region even as major franchises launch ahead of the key summer movie season.