Moon Knight and other Marvel TV shows don't seem to be helping Disney Plus in its attempt to attract new subscribers.
According to new research compiled by Parrot Analytics, Moon Knight, WandaVision and other Marvel Disney Plus shows have little impact on society, which could increase the size of their subscriber base.
According to findings from the leading entertainment analytics firm, each of Marvel's TV offerings became the most-watched show in the world within two weeks of its release. Loki, Hawkeye and Company's audience demand also surpassed many (if not all) of its competitors, with Moon Knight considered to be in 93,5 times the demand of the average TV series.
However, while that number, and that of their fellow Marvel production partners, is obviously good news for Disney and Marvel Studios, the data surrounding each show suggests that the quintet hasn't inspired a huge surge in new users that sign up for Disney Plus.
As the chart above shows, each Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) TV show has embarked on a similar trajectory as its counterparts within weeks of launch. Among the five television series, the audience demand was the highest for WandaVision (102,1 times more than a normal program), while Hawkeye registered the lowest figure (68,6 times more in demand).
Those are huge numbers for Marvel TV offerings. But, according to Parrot Analytics, the data suggests that Moon Knight and company only cater to established MCU audiences, meaning those who have seen every Marvel movie and show to date. As such, it appears that these Marvel shows are helping Disney Plus retain its core subscriber base, but not necessarily helping incentivize new subscriptions.
Is it possible, then, that the MCU's rapid expansion has had a negative impact on its ability to attract new fans, and subsequently reduce the help it can provide to Disney Plus subscriber growth? Can be. At this point, the MCU comprises 27 movies and six shows, a headache-inducing number that may scare away potential fans who may balk at the amount of content they need to consume to catch up.
By contrast, there are only 11 main Star Wars movies and two live-action TV shows for potential fans of Lucasfilm's behemoth franchise to watch. Okay, there's the seven-season animated series of The Clone Wars, plus four seasons for Rebels and one season of The Bad Batch, two other animated Star Wars shows. Although they are canon, they are not currently required for new Star Wars fans. Well, that is until Ahsoka Tano's live-action standalone series hits Disney Plus.
He is one of Ahsoka's brothers in The Mandalorian, by far the biggest and most popular Star Wars property of our time, who has been a key factor behind new subscribers to Disney's streaming platform. With the help of Baby Yoda, by the end of The Mandalorian season 1, the audience demand for the Star Wars show was 161,5 times higher than the average TV series.
As the table above reveals, The Mandalorian was far more popular than The Book of Boba Fett when the latter's first season aired in late 2021 or early 2022. In fact, The Mandalorian's first release became one of the three most requested programs that Parrot Analytics has ever measured in terms of date.
Useful as The Mandalorian contributed to the initial success of Disney Plus in terms of subscriber growth, however, Disney's streaming platform has also been helped by the curiosity of film and television fans.
The Mandalorian came alongside Disney Plus when the latter officially launched on November 12, 2019. Since there were few original movies and shows for subscribers to watch in those early days, The Mandalorian will have benefited from the paucity of other movies. and television series. Sure, Disney Plus launched with a slew of beloved live-action and animated movies and shows, but it certainly lacked original content for early subscribers to stream. The Mandalorian is a great TV show, but its success has certainly been aided by the apparent lack of similar new productions vying for viewers' attention.
It remains to be seen if Star Wars is considered the franchise that is actually driving subscriber growth for Disney Plus. The Boba Fett book showed that might not be the case, but with the highly-anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi series arriving on May 27, we'll have a clearer indication that the franchise will actually grow Disney Plus' subscriber base. . If Obi-Wan releases similar numbers to The Mandalorian, he could prove that Star Wars, not Marvel, is the property Disney can rely on to grow its user base, and wouldn't that be a return for the books?
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