Our spring sale is now live — get full access for just $2/week, 50% OFF for 12 months. Lock in your rate before the offer ends. Howdy, folks!In this newsletter: "The Mandalorian and Grogu," the limits of SAG-AFTRA's AI protections, TheWrap's Showrunners Breakfast, a comprehensive look at "Star Wars" at the box office and more. Roger Cheng will be back on Tuesday (no newsletter Monday for the holiday), but it's been a pleasure writing to you each day this week. You'll find me over in my Reel to Real newsletter — a weekly column dedicated to film and box office — next week and, of course, at TheWrap.com all day every day. For now, my PRO Daily watch has ended. But first... For the first time in seven years, a new "Star Wars" movie is in theaters this weekend with "The Mandalorian and Grogu." This wasn't Lucasfilm's first choice. Or even second. Or maybe even third. They tried and tried to get a new "Star Wars" movie off the ground in the aftermath of 2019's "Rise of Skywalker," but each attempt either got stuck in development hell, like the Rey film that was announced in 2023, or was scuttled by the bosses, like Steven Soderbergh and Adam Driver's Kylo Ren movie that Bob Iger and Alan Bergman nixed (yes, I'm still angry the Disney bosses said no to a Steven Soderbergh "Star Wars" movie!). But as soon as Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni were tapped to bring their popular Disney+ series "The Mandalorian" to the big screen, the Disney flywheel sprang into action to create a tie-in theme park attraction that would be rolled out on the same day the movie hit theaters. It was an 18-month timeline and, miraculously, happened without ever... Adam Chitwood | ||||||||||||
