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There is always a danger when characters from a TV show make the jump into a movie. Will it feel like it belongs on the big screen, or will it feel like a whole season of content crammed into one long episode? Will fans who didn’t watch the series feel lost by what is happening? These are the problems that director Jon Favreau had to overcome with The Mandalorian and Grogu coming to cinemas next month. However, the man who helped launch the MCU assures Star Wars fans that it won’t just feel like a condensed season four.

Speaking to SFX Magazine, Jon Favreau explained the differences between what they’d planned for The Mandalorian Season 4 and what fans will see in The Mandalorian and Grogu. “You can’t just take those scripts and turn them into a movie,” he insisted. “There were a lot of characters, it assumed you’d watched the whole show, and it was teeing up what was happening moving into [the second season of] Ahsoka. It was about Grand Admiral Thrawn and following the larger storyline [of this era of the Star Wars timeline]. This is a completely different medium, so I had to start from scratch essentially.”

That meant stripping back some of the characters and relying on familiar archetypes to help fans who haven’t seen The Mandalorian in action before. “There were certain things I wanted to pursue, like the idea of Grogu being the Mandalorian’s apprentice. As long as you understand the archetypes of this hardened warrior with their vulnerable young apprentice, you’ll know these characters well, even if you’ve never seen the show. But there’s still a lot of Star Wars in there. You’re going to see where things are going [in the wider universe], but that doesn’t diminish from the experience of watching it as a standalone film.”

The Mandalorian and Grogu fly into cinemas on May 22, 2026, marking the first cinematic Star Wars release in the post-Kathleen Kennedy era at Lucasfilm.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.