On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, in our box office segment, Variety‘s Rebecca Rubin carefully measures the turnout over the Memorial Day weekend holiday for Disney’s “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” It was a big test for Disney and Lucasfilm and the strength of the Star Wars franchise at the turnstiles. Meanwhile, Focus Features’ horror pic “Obsession” had a strong sophomore weekend outing.

Rubin, who is Variety‘s box office expert and senior writer for film and media, explains that “Mandalorian and Grogu,” which came in at $100 million worldwide in its opening frame, faces a bar that is high even by the standards of blockbusters, but not quite as lofty as “Star Wars” a decade ago.

“On one hand, it’s significant for any film to debut above $100 million. But then on the other hand, this is Star Wars. This is one of Hollywood’s biggest film franchises out there. And with that comes a certain level of box office expectation,” Rubin says.

“This start is pretty on par with ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story,’ which was their last attempt at a spin off. And the other way that you could look at this is it’s on par with ‘Solo,’ which is really their only financial flop in the Star Wars universe. There’s a big asterisk there because ‘Solo’ was really expensive. It cost almost $300 million to produce. This movie, comparatively, was more modestly priced. It was $165 million to produce. So the difference being they have very different metrics for what commercial success would look like.”

The biggest test for “The Mandalorian” will come this weekend.

“What’s notable here is analysts are taking a wait and see approach, because the second weekend is going to be really indicative of if it’s just the fans that came out to see it, or if it is having appeal beyond that core demographic,” Rubin says.

Focus’ horror pic “Obsession” delivered a pleasant surprise in its second weekend by surpassing the tally for its opening frame. Rubin says much of the credit goes to the YouTube following of director Curry Barker.

“For a horror movie to increase its ticket sales by 30% from its opening weekend is a really remarkable statistic. And it is a very low budget film, so it’s going to be wildly profitable. And this is a movie that is really bringing out young audiences. A lot of it is attributed to the director,” Rubin says. “Curry Barker is activating his audience and actually getting them to go to theaters for a movie that has fantastic reviews and really strong audience scores. And so a lot of the times with horror movies, we see huge drops in the second weekend. And for the most part, horror movies tend to not have the best reviews. So this is just unprecedented on all levels.”

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