Learn more about the new Star Wars movie from the director and creator of The Mandalorian and snag your tickets for the film's theatrical release on May 22, 2026!
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu follows in the footsteps of other great Star Wars films that have come before it. Like Star Wars: A New Hope, it’s a rollicking adventure that immerses us right in the thick of the action in a classic story of good versus evil.
It’s also Grogu’s coming-of-age story, says director Jon Favreau.
“If you're watching it through the eyes of Grogu, he is coming into his own," Favreau tells StarWars.com. "He's starting to take on more and his dad [Din Djarin, the Mandalorian played by Pedro Pascal] is trusting him with more responsibility.”
To celebrate the one-month countdown to the film’s premiere, StarWars.com recently sat down with Favreau to talk about why parenthood has always been a big part of The Mandalorian; casting action-hero icon Sigourney Weaver, legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, and The Bear star Jeremy Allen White; and the new mission ahead.
The Star Wars toy box
As creator of The Mandalorian, Favreau first introduced the world to Pascal’s Din Djarin and Grogu in 2019, just as the Skywalker Saga was about to wrap up with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker landing in theaters.
In the years since, Grogu — often referred to as Baby Yoda — has become an indelible part of the pop culture zeitgeist, Pascal has become one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood (ironically, since the character is often seen wearing full Mandalorian armor), and Favreau has led the creation of three seasons of the series and one spinoff focused on Boba Fett.
After discovering Star Wars as a 10-year-old kid in the summer of 1977, Favreau was working as an usher at a movie theater by the time Star Wars: Return of the Jedi arrived. The Mandalorian and Grogu is an opportunity for Favreau to crack open that metaphorical toy chest, exploring his love of creature features with the dejarik chess set come to life and promoting the Amanin into the spotlight from the shadows of Jabba the Hutt’s palace.
“To have the opportunity to present this [film] in a theater, not just to people who have always loved Star Wars, but to introduce a new generation to Star Wars, to know that you want to reach out and get people as excited about Star Wars as you are and to make them feel the way that I felt the first time I saw it…I think that's a responsibility," Favreau says. "And we've thought tremendously about this because we've been working together for so long. We want to make an experience that doesn't rely upon somebody already loving Star Wars, but gives them an opportunity to fall in love with it the way we have.”
Archetypes and family connections
Promoted as a gritty western, the premiere of The Mandalorian surprised us all with the reveal of Grogu, a Force-sensitive alien in need of protection. “Always at its core, Star Wars is about people,” Favreau says, “the archetypes, the mythology, and the family connections. And what we've settled into here, and I don't think people expected it when they first heard about the show so many years ago, was that it was going to be about parenthood. It was going to be about a father and a son.”
In The Mandalorian and Grogu, we’ll see Grogu continuing his training with his adoptive father Din Djarin. “Now he's not just protecting the kid, but he's also teaching the kid and preparing the kid, as we all do, for the future, and the passing of the baton from one generation to another.”
