Updated May 1, 2026, 8:05 a.m. ET
For Star Wars fans, this year’s “May the 4th” festivities kick off a month of anticipation leading up to the May 22 premiere of Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.”
In the new film, Pedro Pascal reprises his role as Din Djarin, The Mandalorian, accompanied by his apprentice, Grogu − affectionately referred to as “Baby Yoda” by fans until his name was revealed in the series’ second season. The pair will continue a story arc that left off at the end of the third season in April 2023.
“The Mandalorian and Grogu,” directed by Jon Favreau and written by Favreau, Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, will be the first theatrical release tied to the Star Wars franchise since 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”
How does ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ fit into the Star Wars timeline?
The Star Wars timeline is structured around a single event: the Battle of Yavin in the 1977 movie “Episode IV: A New Hope” that ended with the Rebel Alliance and Luke Skywalker destroying the Death Star. Events are measured in the years before the Battle of Yavin (BBY) and after the battle (ABY).
Though the precise timeline for “The Mandalorian and Grogu” isn’t clear, the events of the series were largely clustered around 9 ABY, or nine years after the events of “New Hope.” Two other series on Disney+ − “The Book of Boba Fett” and “Ahsoka” − fell in the same time period, and the characters made cross-appearances among the three series.
With the exception of “The Acolyte,” which takes place around 132 BBY, and a few canonical stories in the “Tales” animated series, most Star Wars movies and series fall within a 67-year window that follows four generations of the Skywalker family, bookended by “Star Wars: Episode I − The Phantom Menace” and “Star Wars: Episode IX − The Rise of Skywalker.”
When it premiered in 2019, “The Mandalorian” was the first live-action Star Wars series on television. Since that time, Disney+ has fleshed out the franchise’s universe with other live-action series like “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Ahsoka,” “The Book of Boba Fett” and “Andor,” the latter a two-season prequel to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
SOURCES StarWars.com; Wookieepedia