Pedro Pascal

This week, the new Star Wars picture – the first live action film since 2019’s commercially successful but largely ridiculed Rise of Skywalker – will come out in cinemas. Clunkily entitled The Mandalorian and Grogu, it is a big-screen spin-off of the once-successful and now largely passé Mandalorian series. A lot is riding on its success, and Lucasfilm, now controlled by Dave Filoni, will be very relieved if it is a hit. Unfortunately, audiences don’t seem especially interested. Advance word on it has been mediocre for some time now – the words “feature-length television movie" have been used more than once – and the box office prediction for its opening weekend is currently somewhere between $70 and $85 million.

The news that the actress Gina Carano has secured a climbdown and undisclosed (but undoubtedly) generous settlement from Disney over her dismissal from The Mandalorian television series in 2021 is sure to have far-reaching consequences that stretch far beyond La La Land. Carano posted a triumphant statement on X, saying, “I hope this brings some healing to the force,” thanked Elon Musk for bankrolling her case and concluded by saying “Yes, I’m smiling.” Disney, meanwhile, released their own, terse assessment in which they announced, “We look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.” It was a win for Carano on every level.

A British film fan recently took to social media to share an unusual experience that had happened to her while visiting the Picturehouse cinema in central London. She was standing in the foyer, watching the trailer for the forthcoming superhero picture The Fantastic Four: First Steps, when she became aware of a middle-aged man standing next to her, enjoying the same preview. He then said, in apparent surprise, “Look! I’m in that!” She turned to him, expecting to see some character actor with a one-line role, and it was none other than Pedro Pascal: film and television star, self-appointed nemesis to J.K. Rowling and “the internet’s daddy.