• Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to $98M domestic over the four-day Memorial Day weekend — the lowest opening in Star Wars theatrical history, below Solo‘s $103M in 2018
• Disney had projected $102M; worldwide gross reached $167M, nearly covering the $165M production budget in its first frame
• A24’s Backrooms pushed hard for No. 1, with a $40M+ debut that would rank as the studio’s highest-grossing opening ever
• Audiences on Rotten Tomatoes called it “a perfectly enjoyable low-stakes popcorn movie” — families, not franchise obsessives, drove the turnout
• The film stars Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin, with Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver in supporting roles, directed by Jon Favreau

The first Star Wars movie in seven years won the Memorial Day box office. It also posted the lowest opening in Star Wars theatrical history. Both things are true, and depending on who you ask, that’s either a crisis or exactly what Disney expected.

The final numbers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu came in at $98 million domestic for the four-day holiday weekend — $81 million for the traditional three-day — with a worldwide total of $167 million. Disney had projected a four-day domestic figure of $102 million on Sunday, revised slightly to $100 million by Monday evening. The actuals came in softer still.

The comparison that keeps surfacing is Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened over Memorial Day 2018 to $103 million domestically and is widely remembered as the franchise’s most significant box office stumble. The Mandalorian and Grogu fell short of that. In terms of raw opening weekend numbers, it is now the worst-performing Star Wars film in the franchise’s theatrical history.

The Case for Not Panicking

The production budget was $165 million — modest by current blockbuster standards. The film covered it globally in its opening weekend, before accounting for marketing costs. That’s not a bomb. It’s also not the sequel trilogy, which was chasing different demographics entirely.

IndieWire made the most useful observation: “Families, Not Fanboys, Drove The Mandalorian and Grogu Box Office — and Disney Is Fine with That.” The film was never engineered for the Reddit-and-YouTube corner of the fanbase that dissected The Last Jedi frame by frame. It’s a family adventure about a space dad and his small green son, and families showed up for it.

Audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes reinforced that read. The consensus from viewers called it “a perfectly enjoyable low-stakes popcorn movie” that delivered on the relationship between Din Djarin and Grogu and “exciting action set pieces.” Nobody walked out angry. Nobody is writing think-pieces about betrayal.

Comicbook.com pushed back on the broader narrative, arguing that “what everyone is getting wrong about the box office” is the comparison itself — that The Mandalorian and Grogu was never competing against The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi. Those films drew audiences who grew up with the original trilogy and were hungry for a return. This film drew people who watch The Mandalorian on Disney+ and wanted to see it bigger. Those are different audiences with different behavior patterns.

The Backrooms Factor

The weekend’s other major story was A24’s Backrooms, the adaptation of internet horror creator Kane Parsons’ YouTube IP, which opened with an estimated $40 million or more — a figure that would represent the highest opening weekend in A24’s history. That a sub-$10 million horror film from a first-time narrative director effectively challenged a Star Wars movie at the Memorial Day box office is its own kind of story, and one that studios are going to be studying for a while.

Backrooms had the same weekend that The Mandalorian and Grogu was supposed to own. The fact that it didn’t is part of why the post-weekend discourse has been so loud.

What Comes Next

Jon Favreau directed and produced the film, with Pedro Pascal returning as Din Djarin alongside Jeremy Allen White and Sigourney Weaver. The film’s global run is just beginning — international markets will matter considerably for how the final numbers look by the time it leaves theaters.

The Ringer framed the weekend with the starkest possible take: “The Mandalorian and Grogu Is the End of Star Wars as We Know It.” Their podcast brought in Star Wars superfan Van Lathan to discuss who the movie was actually made for and whether it marks an end of an era for the franchise at large. It’s a reasonable question, even if the answer isn’t as clean as the headline suggests.

Star Wars last opened a movie in theaters in December 2019. Seven years later, the franchise came back with a family film that opened below expectations and still made its budget back in four days. Whether that’s a failure, a pivot, or just the new reality of a franchise that peaked a decade ago probably depends on how much you loved the sequel trilogy — and whether you have a kid who cried when Grogu showed up on the big screen.

The post The Mandalorian and Grogu Opened to a Series-Low $98M — Here’s Why Disney Isn’t Panicking appeared first on Cream.

• Lucasfilm confirmed in a GameRant interview that Cal Kestis will appear in future Star Wars stories
• The confirmation comes alongside news that a third Star Wars Jedi game is in development
• Actor Cameron Monaghan (Gotham, TRON: Ares) voices and motion-captures Cal, and is widely expected to reprise the role in live-action
• No specific project has been announced — the confirmation is deliberately vague
• Fans are connecting the dots between the Lucasfilm confirmation and a new Luke Skywalker book that fueled fresh theories

Cal Kestis isn’t going anywhere — and Disney wants you to know it.

Lucasfilm representatives confirmed in a recent interview with GameRant that the Star Wars Jedi video game protagonist will feature in future stories beyond the game series. It’s the clearest official signal yet that the character — an Order 66 survivor introduced in Fallen Order and continued in Survivor — has a place in the broader Star Wars universe that extends beyond a controller.

The catch: no specific project was named. It’s a confirmation in the loosest sense — a door held open rather than a door walked through.

The Cameron Monaghan Question

Speculation has swirled for years that Cameron Monaghan, who voices and motion-captures Cal in both games, would eventually reprise the role in live-action. Monaghan has the profile for it — Gotham fans know him well, and his upcoming appearance in TRON: Ares will only raise his visibility. ComicBook noted that the Lucasfilm confirmation, combined with a new Luke Skywalker book generating fan theories, has the internet doing what it does: connecting dots and running with it.

What’s Next for the Games

A third Star Wars Jedi game from Respawn is in development, though details remain sparse. The Lucasfilm statement suggests that whatever comes after that game — TV, film, animation — Cal’s story is part of the longer plan.

For fans who’ve spent two games investing in this character, that’s enough for now.

The post Disney Confirms Cal Kestis Is Coming Back — Live-Action Still Up in the Air appeared first on Cream.

• Damon Lindelof was fired from a Star Wars movie in 2023 after two years of development with co-writers Justin Britt-Gibson and Rayna McClendon
• His script would have centered on Daisy Ridley’s Rey and explored the franchise’s war between nostalgia and reinvention — what he called “the Protestant Reformation inside Star Wars”
• Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight was hired to replace Lindelof and Britt-Gibson, but that version also stalled
• Lindelof says the writing was genuinely hard — nailing the tone, the canon placement, and the relationship to Episode IX all proved elusive
• His comments land the same week The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters, the first Star Wars film since 2019

Damon Lindelof just said out loud what a lot of Star Wars fans have been whispering for years — and he did it by describing his own firing.

The creator of Lost, The Leftovers, and HBO’s Watchmen appeared on The Ringer-Verse’s House of R podcast this week and decided to address what he called “the Bantha in the room”: the fact that he was fired off a Star Wars movie. He didn’t hedge. He didn’t spin it. He just told the story.

“They asked me, ‘What do you think a Star Wars movie should be?’ And I said, ‘Here’s what it should be.’ And they said, ‘Great, you’re hired.’ And then two years later, I was fired,” Lindelof said. “And so I was wrong. At least through that prism.”

The project was first announced in 2022, with Lindelof and co-writer Justin Britt-Gibson developing what would eventually be revealed as a Rey-centric New Jedi Order story — set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, with Daisy Ridley returning as Rey as she attempts to rebuild the Jedi Order. Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was attached to helm it. By 2023, Lindelof and Britt-Gibson were out, replaced by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. That version has since stalled too.

What the Movie Would Have Actually Been About

Here’s where it gets interesting. Lindelof wasn’t just writing a Rey sequel. He was trying to make a film that directly engaged with the fractured state of the Star Wars fanbase itself — without ever breaking the fourth wall to wink at the audience.

“What we were attempting to do — my partners Justin Britt-Gibson and Rayna McClendon and I — was to have this conversation in the movie,” he explained. “Which is to say, there is a Force of nostalgia and there is a Force of revision, and they are at odds with one another. And let’s do the Protestant Reformation inside Star Wars.”

He paused on that, then added: “And it didn’t work.”

It’s a genuinely ambitious idea. The tension between nostalgia and reinvention has been the defining fault line of Star Wars since The Force Awakens — the franchise simultaneously trying to honor the past and build something new, and never quite committing to either. The Last Jedi pushed hard toward revision. The Rise of Skywalker yanked back toward nostalgia. The fandom split accordingly. Lindelof wanted to make that conflict the actual architecture of a movie, not just the subtext.

One intriguing detail that surfaced: Lindelof’s original pitch was apparently set decades after The Rise of Skywalker, and he’d even floated the idea of Helen Mirren playing an older Rey — a version of the character far removed from where Daisy Ridley left her. It’s a bold swing that would have sidestepped the announced story entirely, which may partly explain why the project became such a slow-moving puzzle.

Why the Writing Stalled

Lindelof is clear that the premise wasn’t the problem. Lucasfilm liked it. The problem was execution — and the sheer gravitational weight of the Star Wars universe.

“The writing was really hard. It was slow,” he said. “The tone, getting it right, where it was inside the canon, what its relationship was to Episode IX — is it starting a new trilogy? All of those things. They’re so massive. They’re so big. It’s sort of the tanker equation, which is you turn the wheel and it takes five minutes before it turns a little bit.”

He’s describing something any writer who’s ever tried to work inside a massive franchise will recognize: the script isn’t just a script, it’s also a position statement on everything that came before it. Every scene carries institutional weight. Every choice about tone or timeline or canon ripples outward in ways that are almost impossible to fully anticipate until you’re deep in the work.

And underneath all of it was a more fundamental question that nobody had quite answered yet.

“We’re looking for the center of Star Wars,” Lindelof said. “When Episode VII came out, we all knew what it was. It was Rey and it was Finn and it was Poe, and then we were migrating back in — Luke and Leia and Han and Chewie and all those guys. But we got the sense that when this new trilogy was over, we were going to be launching with these new characters, and that was the center of Star Wars. The new question is: are Mando and Grogu the center of Star Wars now?”

A Franchise Still Looking for Its Footing

That question hangs over everything right now. The Mandalorian and Grogu — the franchise’s first theatrical release in six years — opened May 22, and early reviews have been mixed at best. IGN called it a 5/10, writing that it’s not “a Star Wars movie that thrills, surprises, challenges, or demonstrates a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change.” The film exists, in part, because so many of the more ambitious projects — Lindelof’s among them, but also a Rian Johnson trilogy, a film from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, a Kevin Feige-produced Star Wars movie, James Mangold’s Dawn of the Jedi — never made it out of development.

The Rey movie announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023 with Ridley and Obaid-Chinoy on stage is still technically alive, but new Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni has been quiet about its status. Knight’s replacement script has reportedly hit its own walls. And Kathleen Kennedy, who championed the project publicly, has since stepped down. Meanwhile, a new trilogy from Simon Kinberg is apparently in early development alongside everything else.

Lindelof, for his part, has plenty to keep him busy. His DC series Lanterns is heading to HBO later this year, and he remains one of the most compelling voices in prestige genre television. But it’s hard to listen to him describe what his Star Wars movie could have been — a film that put the franchise’s own identity crisis on screen and tried to work through it — and not feel like something genuinely interesting slipped through the cracks.

“The conversation that the fandom is having, without winking and looking at the audience,” he said. “That didn’t feel necessarily that risky.”

Maybe it wasn’t. But it also never got made.

The post Damon Lindelof on Being Fired From Star Wars appeared first on Cream.

• The Mandalorian and Grogu is projected to earn $80–100M domestically over Memorial Day weekend — in line with the disastrous Solo opening
• Critics have largely panned the film, with outlets calling it “drab,” “lifeless,” and asking someone to “put Star Wars out of its misery”
• Industry analysts say Star Wars is failing to connect with younger moviegoers the way it did with older generations
• The film’s $165M budget is the leanest Star Wars production since Revenge of the Sith, lowering the bar for profitability
• Eyes are already turning to 2027’s Star Wars: Starfighter, starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Shawn Levy, as the franchise’s real reset

The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in theaters on May 22 carrying the full weight of a franchise in crisis — and the reviews aren’t helping.

When the critic embargo lifted Tuesday morning, the headlines were brutal. The Independent’s piece was headlined “Stick a fork in Star Wars. It’s done.” The Times of London asked, “Would someone please put Star Wars out of its misery?” Vulture called it “drab and stone-faced to a fault” with “lifeless performances that seem determined to lull us to sleep.” Even the more charitable takes weren’t exactly rallying cries — the New York Post’s Johnny Oleksinski called it “an elongated and beefed-up episode of television” that’s “likable enough,” while Variety’s Owen Gleiberman settled on “nothing more (or less) than a couple of likable, diverting, semi-forgettable episodes jammed together.” IGN gave it a 5/10, writing that if you’re “looking for a Star Wars movie that thrills, surprises, challenges, or demonstrates a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change… The Mandalorian and Grogu is not the way.”

That’s not what Disney needed to hear.

Box office tracking puts the film at $80–100 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. For almost any other franchise, that’s a respectable number. For Star Wars — one of Hollywood’s most mythologized properties — it’s a stress test. Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian put it plainly: “It will be a stress test for the ‘Star Wars’ brand.”

The uncomfortable comparison is 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opened to $84 million over the same holiday weekend and ultimately became the first Star Wars film to lose money in theaters, finishing with $392 million globally against a nearly $300 million budget. The Mandalorian and Grogu has a far leaner $165 million production budget — the cheapest Star Wars film since Revenge of the Sith in 2005 — which meaningfully lowers the break-even point. But the optics of matching Solo’s opening number are hard to spin.

A Generation That Grew Up Without Star Wars in Theaters

The film is the first Star Wars theatrical release in six and a half years, since The Rise of Skywalker divided audiences and critics alike in December 2019. That gap means there’s a whole cohort of young kids who have never experienced a Star Wars movie opening weekend — which director Jon Favreau has said is very much on his mind. “I want to make the next generation feel the way about Star Wars that I did when I saw it for the first time,” he told the Associated Press.

It’s a noble goal. But industry analysts aren’t sure the current moment is the one that delivers it.

“There’s clearly interest in the brand,” said Eric Handler, senior media analyst at Roth Capital Partners. “But revenues for each film have gotten progressively lower. Star Wars isn’t resonating with younger moviegoers like it did for [older] generations.”

The numbers back him up. The Force Awakens, which relaunched the franchise in 2015, earned over $2 billion globally and remains the highest-grossing domestic release of all time at $936 million. The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker were both billion-dollar films — but each earned roughly half of what their predecessor did. The only post-Disney spinoff that truly worked was Rogue One, which crossed $1 billion in 2016. Since then, it’s been a slow bleed.

The challenge Favreau and Lucasfilm co-CEO Dave Filoni face with this film is a specific one: convincing the show’s streaming audience to actually get off the couch and buy a movie ticket. The Mandalorian was a genuine phenomenon when it launched on Disney+ in 2019 — Baby Yoda broke the internet, became a meme ecosystem unto itself, and turned Grogu into one of the most recognizable characters in pop culture. But streaming audiences and theatrical audiences don’t always overlap. Marvel has run into the same wall: last year’s Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts, both preceded by Disney+ series, underperformed at the box office despite built-in fan bases.

“The biggest challenge is whether the streaming audience converts into a theatrical audience,” said Shawn Robbins, Fandango’s director of movie analytics and founder of Box Office Theory. “If word of mouth is good, that’ll be the big X factor.”

There’s also the small matter of the show’s declining quality in its later seasons — ratings and reviews dipped noticeably by Season 3 of The Mandalorian, giving casual fans less incentive to stay invested heading into a theatrical continuation.

Grogu Merch Is Everywhere. Ticket Sales Are the Question.

What’s not in doubt is Grogu’s commercial appeal off-screen. The little green guy’s face is currently stamped on Bath & Body Works soaps, Nilla Wafers’ “Grogu Nilla Nummies,” Pop Mart blind boxes, and a line of green Schick razors, among other collaborations. As Robbins put it: “Grogu is going to be a merchandising monster.”

That’s the broader Star Wars reality — the franchise is a sprawling ecosystem of theme park attractions, toys, and licensing deals that generates enormous revenue regardless of whether any individual film hits. Analysts are quick to point out that box office performance, while important for optics, is only one corner of that universe.

Still, the marketing campaign for the film reportedly raised some internal eyebrows. One source told Page Six that a member of the marketing team expressed concern they hadn’t had enough time to screen the film and properly build a campaign around it. Promotion, the source noted, basically boiled down to: “Look how adorable Grogu is!” — which may explain why, in a recent Fandango survey asking thousands of moviegoers to name their top 10 most anticipated films of the summer, The Mandalorian and Grogu didn’t make the list.

All Eyes on Starfighter

Inside Lucasfilm and among box office watchers, there’s a growing sense that the franchise’s real shot at revival isn’t this movie — it’s next summer’s Star Wars: Starfighter.

Directed by Shawn Levy, who brought enormous energy to Deadpool & Wolverine, and starring Ryan Gosling fresh off the success of Project Hail Mary, Starfighter is a standalone film set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker in a time period the franchise hasn’t explored yet. Levy has been emphatic that it’s a clean break. “It’s a new adventure,” he said at Star Wars Celebration 2025. “It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet.” No legacy characters, no Skywalker baggage, no sequel obligations.

Handler sees it clearly: “Disney needs something new and exciting to bring energy to the franchise. Ryan Gosling is as hot as can be right now. ‘Starfighter’ could be the way to go.”

For now, though, the focus is on this weekend. Dergarabedian is watching the second-week drop closely — a 55% decline would signal genuine audience engagement; a 70% freefall would tell a different story entirely. “There’s been just this feeling of disappointment and almost… not anger. But just very critical of the creative direction that Star Wars has taken over the past few years,” he said.

This is also, notably, the first major theatrical release in the post-Kathleen Kennedy era. Kennedy, who ran Lucasfilm for over two decades, stepped down earlier this year, with Filoni and Lynwen Brennan now at the helm. They have yet to reveal a broader roadmap for the franchise, though that could change at D23 in August or at next April’s Star Wars Celebration.

The Mandalorian and Grogu opens May 22. Star Wars: Starfighter is currently set for May 28, 2027.

The post Star Wars Is Losing Younger Fans — Can It Survive? appeared first on Cream.

• Tom Kane died May 18, 2026, at a Kansas City hospital from complications of a 2020 stroke — he was 64.
• He was best known for voicing Yoda in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Professor Utonium in The Powerpuff Girls.
• Kane’s career spanned nearly 50 years and over 270 credits across animation, film, video games, and theme parks.
• He is survived by his wife Cindy and nine children — three biological and six adopted or fostered.
• Lucasfilm’s Dave Filoni and Powerpuff Girls co-star Tara Strong led tributes from across the industry.

Tom Kane, the voice actor whose warm baritone shaped some of the most beloved characters in animation history, died Monday, May 18, at a hospital in Kansas City. He was 64. His representative, Zachary McGinnis, confirmed that Kane passed away surrounded by family, from complications of a stroke he suffered in November 2020.

“Today we say goodbye to Tom Kane — a legendary voice actor whose work shaped the childhoods and imaginations of millions around the world,” his talent agency, Galactic Productions, wrote in a statement. “From his unforgettable performances in Star Wars to countless animated series, documentaries, and games, Tom brought wisdom, strength, humor, and heart to every role he touched. His voice became part of our lives, our memories, and the stories we carry with us.”

The statement closed with a line that felt entirely right for the man behind one of the galaxy’s most iconic voices: “Rest in peace, Tom Kane. Thank you for everything. May the Force be with you, always.”

The Voice That Defined a Generation of Animation

Born Thomas Kane Roberts on April 15, 1962, in Overland Park, Kansas, Kane got his start in voiceovers at 15 years old — cold-calling local advertisers from Kansas City and talking his way into commercial work. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1984, having already built a foundation of hundreds of commercials, and his first credited screen appearance came in a 1992 episode of Who’s the Boss.

By the mid-1990s, he was finding his footing in animation, landing early roles on The Legend of Prince Valiant, the Iron Man cartoon, and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, where he played Dr. Doom. Then 1998 changed everything. That year, he landed two roles that would define him — Darwin on The Wild Thornberrys and Professor Utonium, the gentle, brilliant father figure at the center of Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls.

He didn’t just voice the Professor. He also voiced HIM, the show’s flamboyantly sinister villain — a range that speaks to just how versatile Kane truly was. The Powerpuff Girls became one of Cartoon Network’s signature hits of the late ’90s and early 2000s, and Kane’s performances were woven into the fabric of an entire generation’s childhood. Cartoon Network marked his passing with a photo of Kane alongside his animated family, writing: “Rest in peace, Professor ❤️ Thank you, Tom Kane, for lending your voice to the father of three perfect little girls and bringing The Force to millions of fans. You’ll live on in our childhood memories forever.”

Tara Strong, who played Buttercup opposite Kane’s Professor Utonium, shared a deeply personal tribute. “Everything he did, he did to perfection, but never in a predictable way,” she wrote on Instagram. “Tom always found something deeper, more creative, more thoughtful, weird, fun and unique. Brilliant. Giving. Funny. Supportive. Kind. There was no one like HIM. I’m beyond grateful for all the hours we spent together in the booth, and so grateful we got to see him again recently… hug him tight and tell him how much we love and miss him.”

The Voice of the Clone Wars

Kane’s relationship with Star Wars began in 1996, when he was brought in to handle background voice parts for Lucasfilm’s video game branch — starting with Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Three years later, he first voiced Jedi Master Yoda in the 1999 game Star Wars: Yoda’s Challenge, and the role stuck.

In 2003, he voiced both Yoda and C-3PO for Genndy Tartakovsky’s acclaimed Star Wars: Clone Wars micro-series on Cartoon Network. When the full CGI series Star Wars: The Clone Wars launched in 2008 — first as a theatrical film, then as a long-running series — Kane was front and center, this time as the show’s narrator. That opening narration, delivered weekly for years, became the sound of a generation’s Friday nights.

“Tom loved ‘Star Wars’,” said Lucasfilm President and Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni. “Fans may best remember him as the voice of the animated Yoda, but truly his voice was the spirit of the Clone Wars. His opening narration introduced an entire generation to the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy, getting viewers ready for another adventure far, far away.”

Kane’s Star Wars work extended across nearly every corner of the franchise — voicing Admiral Ackbar, Boba Fett, Qui-Gon Jinn, and C-3PO across various games and productions. He stepped into the live-action world too, voicing Admiral Ackbar in 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi following the death of the character’s original voice actor, Erik Bauersfeld, in 2016. His Star Wars credits on the official Star Wars biography page honoring him run deep.

A Career That Went Far Beyond Two Franchises

With over 270 credits across nearly five decades, Kane’s reach was staggering. He voiced Mr. Herriman in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Lord Monkey Fist in Kim Possible, Woodhouse in Archer, Simon in Codename: Kids Next Door, Magneto in Wolverine and the X-Men, and Ultron in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. In video games, he was Takeo Masaki in Call of Duty‘s beloved Zombies mode, Commissioner Gordon in the Batman: Arkham Asylum series, and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit games. His final credited role was in the 2023 mobile game Harry Potter: Magic Awakened.

His voice also lived in places fans might not have realized. He was the voice of the monorail and bus system at Walt Disney World, the announcer for several Star Wars theme park rides and attractions, and the voice behind the Disney Parks fireworks show. He also announced the 80th, 83rd, 84th, and 90th Academy Awards broadcasts on ABC. And behind the scenes, Kane provided voice doubling for major Hollywood actors — stepping in for Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Liam Neeson, among others.

The Stroke, the Retirement, and One Last Reunion

In November 2020, Kane suffered a stroke that devastated his ability to speak, write, and read. At the time, his daughter shared a message with fans explaining the severity: “As many of you might know about strokes, it is possible for him to gain these functions back and we have found him excellent care in Kansas City for speech, occupational, and physical therapy, but for now, we have been warned by his neurologist that he may not do voiceovers again.”

He officially retired from voice acting in 2021. But earlier this year, he made a rare public appearance at the Lexington Comic and Toy Convention in Kentucky, reuniting with the original cast of The Powerpuff Girls. Fans who were there captured a moment that now carries extra weight — Kane, in his signature Yoda voice, telling the crowd: “The force will be with you, always, yes.”

One fan wrote online in the hours after his death: “RIP Tom Kane, loved him as Professor Utonium. This was the last reunion the cast had together in March 2026, may he rest in peace.” Another shared: “Rewatching the ending of season 6 of The Clone Wars now hits hard. RIP Tom Kane, and May the Force be with you.”

Beyond everything he gave to screens large and small, McGinnis remembered Kane as something more. “Beyond the incredible career was an extraordinary man. Tom was a devoted husband and father who, alongside his wife, built a loving family of nine children — three biological and six welcomed through adoption and fostering. That compassion and generosity defined who he was just as much as his remarkable talent did.”

He is survived by his wife, Cindy, and their nine children.

“Though his voice may now be silent,” McGinnis said, “the characters, stories, and love he gave to the world will live on forever.”

The post Tom Kane, Voice of Yoda and Professor Utonium, Dies at 64 appeared first on Cream.

• Pedro Pascal showed up in full Mandalorian armor to surprise about 15 guests boarding the Millennium Falcon at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
• He removed his helmet mid-surprise, joking “Now you all have to die because you’ve seen my face”
• Director Jon Favreau, Sigourney Weaver, and Lucasfilm President Dave Filoni were also at the park for the visit
• The stunt ties into the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, hitting theaters May 22
• The film picks up after Season 3 of the Disney+ series and also stars Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White

A small group of Star Wars fans visiting Disneyland this weekend had no idea they were about to meet the man behind the helmet. Pedro Pascal suited up in full Mandalorian armor — head-to-toe black, helmet and all — and walked straight into the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run attraction to greet unsuspecting guests before they boarded the ride.

About 15 visitors were invited aboard the iconic ship’s loading area as part of the surprise, which was captured on video and shared by the official Star Wars and Disneyland Instagram accounts. In behind-the-scenes footage shot before Pascal stepped into the attraction, the actor can be seen putting on the Mandalorian helmet and cracking himself up in the process.

“Don’t make it too obvious it’s me,” he jokes. Then, adjusting his voice: “I don’t think they’re gonna hear my welcome” — before adding, with a casual wave — “I’ll just be like, what’s up?”

The guests walked into the main hold of the Falcon to find the Mandalorian quietly waiting alongside them. A Cast Member greeted them with a cheerful “Bright suns, travelers!” before prompting the helmeted figure — asking if he had anything to say before sending them on their journey.

Pascal slowly lifted the helmet off his face. The room erupted.

“Now you all have to die because you’ve seen my face,” he deadpanned, nodding to the Mandalorian warrior code around never removing their helmets. The guests — visibly stunned, screaming, laughing — then got to pose for photos with him.

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A Full Galaxy’s Edge Takeover

Pascal wasn’t alone for the Disneyland visit. Director and co-writer Jon Favreau, Mandalorian & Grogu co-star Sigourney Weaver, and Lucasfilm President Dave Filoni were all in attendance at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. The group was spotted on the walkway overlooking the Millennium Falcon, taking in “The Curious Child” — a limited-time nighttime show running at the park to build buzz for the film’s May 22 release.

Disney Parks also confirmed that both Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World will be rolling out Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu-inspired food and drinks to mark the occasion, along with new souvenir novelties at both locations.

What the Movie Is Actually About

After three seasons on Disney+, Din Djarin and Grogu are heading to the big screen. The film is set shortly after the events of The Mandalorian Season 3 — which ended with Mando officially adopting Grogu — and follows the pair as they take on a mission to rescue Rotta the Hutt, played by Jeremy Allen White, in exchange for critical information. All of this while the fledgling New Republic tries to hold the galaxy together in the Empire’s wake.

Sigourney Weaver, who joins the franchise for the first time in the film, told E! News at the Los Angeles premiere on May 14 that fans should expect Grogu to surprise them. “He looks like a little creature-eating, happy-go-lucky guy,” she said, “but I think he’s got much more of a warrior in him than we think.”

That premiere was no small affair. The red carpet stretched across Hollywood Boulevard — shutting down the street entirely, Oscars-style — outside the TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX. Pascal, Weaver, and Favreau were all there, and Pascal got a surprise visit from The Last of Us co-star Gabriel Luna on the carpet.

Pascal has spoken openly about how much the role means to him personally. “I can’t tell you how important it is to me to be a part of something that could be the kind of memory that it was, to see Star Wars on the big screen as a kid with my family, with my friends, repeat watches and to just have that be part of my childhood,” he told Access Hollywood at the premiere.

He’s also been candid about the collaborative nature of playing a character who spends most of his screen time behind a helmet. Pascal has credited fellow suit and stunt performers Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder as essential to bringing Din Djarin to life across the series — a partnership that carries over into the film.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters May 22. If the Disneyland moment is any indication, Pascal is going to enjoy every second of it.

The post Pedro Pascal Surprises Disneyland Fans as the Mandalorian appeared first on Cream.

• A brief mention of the Clone Wars in 1977’s A New Hope went unexplained for 25 years before Attack of the Clones finally gave fans answers.
• Attack of the Clones — released May 16, 2002 — introduced clone troopers and depicted the Battle of Geonosis, the war’s opening battle.
• Yoda’s now-iconic line “Begun, the Clone Wars have” capped the film and launched one of Star Wars’ most expansive storytelling eras.
• The animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch have since expanded that single throwaway line into some of the franchise’s most beloved content.
• Revenge of the Sith, which premiered at Cannes on May 15, 2005, brought the prequel era to a close — but the Clone Wars story was just getting started.

When Obi-Wan Kenobi casually mentioned fighting alongside Anakin Skywalker in something called the Clone Wars during a quiet scene in A New Hope, nobody — not even George Lucas — could have predicted where that single line would eventually lead. Twenty-five years of storytelling, multiple animated series, and some of the most emotionally rich content in the entire Star Wars galaxy all trace back to what easily could have been a throwaway piece of worldbuilding.

The original trilogy never elaborated on it. The Phantom Menace didn’t touch it either, which made the Clone Wars feel like a peculiar dangling thread — something referenced but never explained, a historical event that existed only in the margins. Then came Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, released 24 years ago, and everything changed.

What Attack of the Clones Actually Had to Do

The prequel trilogy carried enormous narrative weight before a single frame was shot. These films had to explain how Darth Vader was Luke and Leia’s father, how the twins were separated, who their mother was, how the Jedi Order functioned, and how the Republic crumbled into the Empire — all while telling a story whose ending the audience already knew. That’s a staggering amount of connective tissue to weave together without losing the audience along the way.

Attack of the Clones tackled the Clone Wars specifically, and it did so with a kind of structural elegance. The film introduced the clone troopers — mysterious, unsettling, their full purpose not yet clear — and then paid it off with the Battle of Geonosis, the Republic and the Separatists clashing with their armies of clones and battle droids in what amounted to the war’s opening shot. For audiences who had spent decades wondering what this conflict actually was, seeing it ignite on screen carried real weight.

And then Yoda delivered the line that made it official: “Begun, the Clone Wars have.” Simple. Declarative. Enormously satisfying.

The film ended almost immediately after, which meant that the bulk of the war itself — years of battles, politics, sacrifice, and moral complexity — happened off-screen between Episodes II and III. Revenge of the Sith, which made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2005, to a standing ovation, showed the war’s end: the Battle of Coruscant, Order 66, the fall of the Jedi. Directed by Lucas and starring Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, and Natalie Portman, it was his final film as a Star Wars writer-director, and it grossed over $848 million worldwide. But even that film, for all its tragedy and spectacle, could only gesture at the full scope of what the Clone Wars actually were.

Where the Real Story Began

The animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars is where that throwaway line from 1977 truly found its home. What the prequel films could only sketch in broad strokes, the series filled in with extraordinary depth — the individual clone troopers given names and personalities, the political machinations of the Separatists, the moral ambiguities of a war fought by an army of engineered soldiers who never asked to exist. Most crucially, the show introduced the clone inhibitor chip, the biological failsafe built into every trooper that made Order 66 — previously one of the prequel trilogy’s more confusing plot points — suddenly devastating in a completely new way. These weren’t soldiers who chose to betray the Jedi. They never had a choice at all.

That recontextualization alone transformed how an entire generation of fans understood the prequel era. A line spoken in passing in 1977 had, through decades of patient storytelling, become the foundation for some of the most emotionally complex content Star Wars has ever produced.

The Bad Batch continued that expansion, following a squad of elite clone troopers with genetic mutations that made them resistant to the inhibitor chip — and therefore forced to navigate a galaxy that had just turned against everything they’d fought for. The Clone Wars, as a storytelling engine, showed no signs of exhaustion.

It’s a remarkable trajectory for what Obi-Wan mentioned almost in passing while trying to convince a farm boy to leave his planet. Decades later, that moment is still generating new stories — and the best ones, arguably, are the ones that never made it to the big screen at all.

The post How Star Wars Turned One Throwaway Line Into Its Best Storytelling appeared first on Cream.

• Dave Filoni, newly named Lucasfilm president, is prioritizing story quality over release quotas for Star Wars
• The Mandalorian and Grogu opens May 22 — the franchise’s first theatrical film since 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker
• Star Wars: Starfighter starring Ryan Gosling follows in May 2027, with Ahsoka Season 2 also due that year
• A Simon Kinberg trilogy rumored to become Episodes X, XI, and XII is among the projects believed to still be in motion
• Filoni says fans have known him for 20 years and should have a good sense of what to expect under his leadership

Dave Filoni has been telling Star Wars stories for two decades. Now he’s in charge of them. And with The Mandalorian and Grogu arriving in theaters on May 22 — the franchise’s first big-screen outing since The Rise of Skywalker landed to mixed reviews back in 2019 — the newly minted Lucasfilm president is finally starting to sketch out what the galaxy far, far away looks like under his watch.

In a new interview with Collider, Filoni was asked directly about how many films and shows he envisions putting out each year. His answer was characteristically measured — but there was real substance underneath it.

“For me right now, rather than dealing with hard numbers like that, I’m just looking at the stories and the potential and planning what I’d like to do,” Filoni said. “I believe in having an overarching idea and then saying, ‘Okay, it’s this many of that, and then we can have that.’ There are certain things that have been in motion already that, obviously, I want to continue. Jon [Favreau] and I have had a great partnership for many years now, telling stories. So, I look at the stories that I’m kind of planning and architecting, and I look at other creative talents that bring us, also, great stories, and I just try to find a way to make them all work.”

It’s a pointed contrast to how things operated during the Disney era’s most chaotic stretch, when Star Wars films were hitting theaters annually from 2015 through 2019 — a pace that ultimately burned out audiences and left a trail of cancelled projects in its wake. For every film that made it to screens, several more quietly died in development. Filoni’s philosophy seems to be: fewer promises, better stories.

What’s Actually Coming — and When

The Mandalorian and Grogu, which Filoni co-wrote and produced alongside director Jon Favreau, is the first piece of that puzzle. After that, Ahsoka Season 2 is set for early 2027 on Disney+, followed in May 2027 by Star Wars: Starfighter — a standalone film directed by Shawn Levy with a stacked ensemble that includes Ryan Gosling, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams, Mia Goth, and Matt Smith. Filoni was effusive about that one: “Shawn Levy did a great job with Starfighter. So there’s a lot.”

On the animation side, Maul – Shadow Lord — which Filoni wrote and created — just wrapped its first season on Disney+ and has already been renewed for Season 2. Voice actor Sam Witwer has confirmed the team had been working on that second season for some time. “There’s a lot on my plate which is exciting, not just in live-action but animation, like Maul, which has been very fun, and they’re driving forward,” Filoni said.

He also teased a re-release of Episode IV: A New Hope as part of the broader celebration ahead. “And the re-release of Episode IV. There’s so much exciting stuff coming for Star Wars fans.”

The Bigger Picture: Sequels, Trilogies, and Loose Threads

When Filoni says “there are certain things that have been in motion already that I want to continue,” the fan community has plenty of material to read into. A trilogy conceived by Simon Kinberg is widely rumored to become Episodes X, XI, and XII, and may incorporate the Rey Skywalker sequel that director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy had been developing. James Mangold’s “Dawn of the Jedi” origin film, Taika Waititi’s long-gestating project, and a Lando Calrissian spin-off from Donald Glover are all still technically on the table — though their statuses remain genuinely unclear.

What reads loudest in Filoni’s quote, though, is the Favreau partnership. The two have built the modern era of Star Wars storytelling together — from The Mandalorian‘s breakout debut through The Book of Boba Fett and beyond. The suggestion that their collaborative work will continue strongly implies the Mando and Grogu story isn’t ending with this film.

Filoni himself was previously announced as the director of an untitled film that would tie together the events of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and The Book of Boba Fett — essentially a theatrical culmination of the interconnected Mandalorian-verse saga he’s been building for years. With Ahsoka Season 2 still in production, the timeline for that project remains open.

Filoni Isn’t Going Anywhere Creatively

One thing he was unambiguous about: taking the president title doesn’t mean stepping back from the actual work. Between Maul – Shadow Lord, Ahsoka Season 2, and overseeing productions like Starfighter, Filoni is still very much in the trenches as a creator.

“Fans have known me now for 20 years and that I’ve worked with and told Star Wars stories, so I think they have a good idea of what to expect,” he said. “I’ve so far really enjoyed collaborating with everybody, and we are well on our way. The future’s in motion now, so it’s exciting.”

The man who gave the world Ahsoka Tano — now one of the most beloved characters in the entire franchise — is now the one holding the keys to all of it. The clearest next signal of where things are headed will likely come at D23 Expo in August, or at Star Wars Celebration in April 2027. But for now, the galaxy has a new architect. And he sounds like he knows exactly what he wants to build.

The post Dave Filoni Lays Out His Vision for Star Wars’ Future appeared first on Cream.

• Disney confirmed at its upfront presentation that Ahsoka Season 2 has been delayed to early 2027.
• The show was previously expected to premiere before the end of 2026.
• The delay comes as Star Wars is already having a massive year with The Mandalorian and Grogu hitting theaters May 22, 2026.
• Dave Filoni serves as showrunner and creator on Ahsoka, and is also involved in the theatrical film.
• The news lands amid a broader Star Wars moment — prequel trilogy films are surging on Disney+ streaming charts for the first time.

Ahsoka fans are going to have to wait a little longer. Disney officially confirmed at its upfront presentation that Ahsoka Season 2 has been pushed to early 2027 — a significant shift from earlier expectations that the show would return before the end of this year.

The delay is a disappointment for the show’s passionate fanbase, but it’s not exactly a shock given how much Star Wars has on its plate right now. The franchise is in the middle of one of its biggest theatrical moments in years, with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opening in theaters on May 22, 2026. That film brings Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin and everyone’s favorite tiny green Force-sensitive companion to the big screen after three seasons of The Mandalorian — and it’s a genuine event, not just another streaming drop. The cast alone signals how seriously Disney is taking it: Sigourney Weaver joins as Colonel Ward, a New Republic officer, and Jeremy Allen White voices Rotta the Hutt, son of Jabba himself. Even Martin Scorsese shows up as the voice of an Ardennian shopkeeper, which is exactly the kind of sentence you never expected to write in 2026.

Dave Filoni — who created and serves as showrunner on Ahsoka — is deeply embedded in that film too, returning as New Republic pilot Trapper Wolf. It’s a lot of Star Wars to manage at once, and pushing Season 2 to give it the proper runway makes sense creatively, even if the wait stings.

What the Delay Means for the Bigger Star Wars Picture

Ahsoka Season 1 debuted in August 2023 and immediately became one of Disney+’s signature Star Wars titles, weaving together threads from Star Wars Rebels and The Clone Wars in ways that rewarded longtime fans while still pulling in newcomers. Season 2 moving to 2027 means there will be roughly a three-and-a-half-year gap between seasons — long by any standard, though not unheard of in the prestige streaming era.

The upside is that the Star Wars universe isn’t going quiet in the meantime. Beyond The Mandalorian and Grogu, the franchise is experiencing a genuine cultural reset right now. On Disney+, the prequel trilogy has been climbing the streaming charts in a way that would have seemed unthinkable when The Phantom Menace first hit theaters in 1999. The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are sitting in the platform’s top 10 alongside A New Hope — a sign that the generation that grew up with Anakin and Obi-Wan has fully claimed those films as their own comfort watches. The Clone Wars deserves a lot of credit for that rehabilitation, slowly deepening the prequel era’s lore until it clicked for audiences who’d been skeptical.

Disney is also making moves at the parks. Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge — which launched during the height of sequel trilogy discourse and never quite connected the way the park hoped — is getting an expansion that brings Original Trilogy characters and John Williams’ iconic score back into the land. Meet-and-greets with Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Darth Vader are coming to a space that was built around a planet most casual fans had never heard of. It’s a clear-eyed acknowledgment that fans want the Star Wars they grew up loving, and that canon doesn’t have to be a cage.

Taken together, it paints a picture of a franchise that’s actively recalibrating — leaning into what works, giving its prestige streaming shows more time to get it right, and letting the theatrical event of The Mandalorian and Grogu carry the flag for now.

For Ahsoka fans specifically, early 2027 is the target. That’s a long time to sit with the Season 1 ending — but if Filoni and his team use the extra runway well, it could be worth every month of the wait.

The post Ahsoka Season 2 Delayed to Early 2027, Disney Confirms appeared first on Cream.

• Jon Favreau says he’s not entirely sure why The Mandalorian and Grogu was chosen as the first Star Wars film in seven years
• He believes Grogu’s massive cultural footprint — “Baby Yoda was everywhere” — is a major factor
• Favreau sees the film as an opportunity to bring Star Wars to a whole new audience
• Co-star Jonny Coyne reveals Grogu’s puppeteers stay in character even between takes, channeling the Muppets tradition
• The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters May 22

Seven years is a long time to wait for Star Wars on the big screen. And of all the projects that Lucasfilm has teased, announced, and quietly shelved over that stretch, the one that actually made it to theaters turned out to be something nobody quite saw coming — a movie built around a TV bounty hunter and a tiny green creature that broke the internet in 2019. Jon Favreau, the man directing The Mandalorian and Grogu, is still a little surprised himself.

“I’m not sure what, exactly, why we were asked to do this,” Favreau told GamesRadar in London. “I suspect it was because these are characters that people, even who hadn’t seen Star Wars, may be aware of, especially Grogu. Baby Yoda was everywhere.”

He’s not wrong. When The Mandalorian launched Disney+ back in November 2019, it was Grogu — then nicknamed Baby Yoda by a delighted internet — who became the show’s breakout star almost overnight. The memes, the merch, the cultural saturation: it was one of those rare pop culture moments where something genuinely transcended its fandom. And Favreau clearly believes that crossover power is exactly what Star Wars needs right now to recapture casual audiences.

“These are two characters that were used to launch Disney Plus, and we made no assumptions when the Mandalorian TV show came on that anybody had seen any Star Wars before,” he explained. “But we also wanted to make it feel authentic to Star Wars, and so the world that we created as the backdrop and the way the characters present themselves were embraced by Star Wars fans, which I really appreciate. But it also was an inroad for people who may not have ever watched Star Wars on television, and here we are now, seven years after the last film. I think there’s an opportunity to present Star Wars to a new audience using these characters as well.”

The Weight of Bringing Star Wars Back to Theaters

This isn’t Favreau’s first time carrying the weight of a beloved franchise. He kicked off the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man, a film that nobody was entirely sure would work and that changed Hollywood permanently. Now he’s in a roughly analogous position with Star Wars, and the pressure isn’t lost on him.

“I felt definitely responsibility, but more so to tell as good of a story as I could,” he said. “I find that, as a Star Wars fan myself, and across multiple genres that have strong fan bases, they really are invested in the story being good, and they want a great experience. And if you could deliver that to them, they reward you, but they want to make sure that you care as much as they do.”

That care, he says, shows up in the details — including some genuinely old-school filmmaking choices. Favreau mentioned bringing in Phil Tippett for stop-motion animation and John Goodson for miniature work, the kind of practical craft callbacks that Star Wars fans tend to go wild for. “We’re doing that because we’re excited by it, it’s fun for us,” he said, “and I think the story that surrounds the making of it is as much a part of the story as what you see on the screen.”

He also spoke to how deliberately the film is structured to work on two levels — accessible to first-timers, rewarding for diehards. “Star Wars fans are very perceptive, and so you can be very subtle in the messages that you send,” he said. “Part of the Star Wars community is that they communicate among one another. There’s a lot of speculation. There’s a lot of filling in the blanks for one another. So, you don’t have to lay everything out deliberately in a way that’s overly obvious.”

On Set, Grogu Never Really Clocks Out

One of the film’s co-stars, Jonny Coyne — who plays the mysterious Lord Janu and is known for his work on The Blacklist — stayed tight-lipped about plot details when speaking to CinemaBlend, but he had plenty to say about what it’s actually like sharing a set with Grogu. And it turns out the puppeteers behind the character bring a level of commitment that would impress even the most dedicated Muppets performer.

Coyne described how the team operating Grogu stays in character between takes — keeping the little guy “alive” even when the cameras aren’t rolling. It’s a philosophy straight out of the Jim Henson playbook, and it’s not entirely a coincidence. Yoda, Grogu’s species-mate and spiritual predecessor, was originally voiced and co-performed by Frank Oz, the legend behind Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal. The Henson Company’s DNA runs deep in this corner of the galaxy.

Coyne also noted that unlike actual babies (unpredictable, often uncooperative) or animals (famously difficult on set), Grogu manages to be the best of both — small, cute, and always ready for his close-up. “Babies can be whiny, fussy, hungry,” the logic goes, but a 50-year-old creature who looks like an infant? Apparently that’s the sweet spot.

It’s a small behind-the-scenes detail, but it says something about the care being put into this production — the same care Favreau keeps coming back to when he talks about what makes Star Wars fans tick.

The Mandalorian and Grogu opens in theaters May 22.

The post Jon Favreau on Why Baby Yoda Is Bringing Star Wars Back appeared first on Cream.