So imagine for a moment that you’re Lucasfilm and you’ve not had a live action Star Wars property out there in a year. You’ve put one-hundred million dollars into making a new one, and that’s production costs only. You’re up there in blockbuster budget territory. Imagine you’re the executives at Disney, and the takeoff of this live action Star Wars property is key to your streaming service (upon which much or most of your company’s stock value rests). There’s a lot riding on The Book of Boba Fett. Like, a lot.
So now we’ve got better statistics (in my opinion) than when we first received Samba TV metrics. Nielsen is giving us their best guess into how popular The Book of Boba Fett is, and it isn’t good. We can go into the numbers, we can go into the breakdown of households, we can parse out how all of this compares to Samba TV’s numbers or how this translates to numbers of people watching this thing. But hang with me, because it really doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. Here’s what matters:
If Lucasfilm released a new Star Wars movie with a $100,000,000 production price tag and a similar marketing budget… and that film came in eighth place… what do you think the response would be in Burbank with Disney? Now, I don’t care how you want to spin this thing, you want to pretend that Disney just blew a hundred million dollars on a Star Wars live action with a star that has been linked to this property for well-over a decade — and they’re going to be happy with eighth place? Eighth?
C’mon.
And it’s not like this is some glorious eighth place that gets you close to first. There’s no snapshot finish where everyone’s within a hair of winning the thing. Cobra Kai is at almost 2.5 billion minutes watched and your big End-of-Year “throw everything at it” series gets 389 million views. Your opening salvo just got beat by an underperforming Hawkeye for crying out loud. The difference here is like coming out with a movie at the box office which picks up $38 million in ticket sales and your competitor grabbed $250 million. Who’s winning here?
1. Cobra Kai (Netflix), 2.42 billion minutes viewed
2. The Witcher (Netflix), 1.83 billion
3. Emily in Paris (Netflix), 1.11 billion
4. The Wheel of Time (Prime Video), 630 million
5. Hawkeye (Disney+), 539 million
6. Queer Eye (Netflix), 466 million
7. Lost in Space (Netflix), 452 million
8. The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+), 389 million
9. Stay Close (Netflix), 349 million
10. The Great British Baking Show (Netflix), 338 million
— Nielsen Ratings for Dec 27 – Jan 2 Original Series per The Hollywood Reporter
You want to know how bad this is? If you include “acquired series”, Bluey the cartoon dog for preschoolers and toddlers is nipping at your heels. Go into an executive meeting and explain that away.
And it’s not like I’m here to harp on The Book of Boba Fett. I’ve been reporting that Jon Favreau, the guy behind the series, is likely to lead The Walt Disney Company creatively to a larger degree. I just gave The Book of Boba Fett Episode 5 a great score for its review. I’m not out to trash this property. But if you expect me to look at how The Force Awakens performed at the box office, The Mandalorian performed streaming (its premiere more than doubled Boba Fett), and then pretend that The Book of Boba Fett’s opening numbers were anything other than a catastrophe, I’m not game. There’s no way anybody at the C-Suite of Disney is pleased with what they’re seeing. This is “red alert” change the game plan level bad. When you think about the subsequent episodes likely dropping until this latest one (which almost certainly is going to be a ratings rocket), the public is giving a very strong message to Disney.
You can hide behind ideology, you can hide behind your fanaticism for Star Wars, you can pretend that Cobra Kai is some worldwide phenomenon that blows away whatever Star Wars once was. But what you can’t do is believe that Star Wars is a big deal right now in getting subscriptions for Disney+. If Disney wants to spend $100 million on a property that fails to spin wheels, have at it. But how about this? Netflix spent $500 million for five years of Seinfeld. Seinfeld is wiping the floor with The Book of Boba Fett.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and keep reading That Park Place for all the latest in streaming news, rumors, leaks, and analysis.
Hawkeye underperforming what ?
Its numbers are significantly lower than WandaVision and Loki according to Nielsen (Samba TV differs).
Is The Book of Boba Fett actually about the character Boba Fett? He has the same name, the same ship, the same armor, but acts like a wimp, not a bounty hunter or even a crime boss. I haven’t watched since episode 2, so I can’t comment on anything past that.
If you make a show about a character with established lore that people love, just give them what they are looking for. Why does Disney insist on trying to make Boba Mr. Softie and Luke drink green milk straight from the alien’s teat? It’s kind of the same thing, no?
Sorry, I totally lost my point. That’s why Cobra Kai is doing so well. It took established lord and plot lines and built on them. They didn’t try to reboot the characters entirely.
It’s that simple. Hollywood, other than Sony, is so frustratingly stupid.
What about the fact that you are comparing viewing minutes of 1 episode of Boba Fett to an entire new season of Cobra Kai that dropped all at once? Of course it’s going to have a lot more viewing hours. People were home for the holidays binging the entire season. I don’t think the numbers are great but it’s not really a completely fair comparison. If Boba dropped the entire season all at once like Cobra Kai wouldn’t the viewing minutes be multiple times larger?
See the response to Valliant Renegade. Good point, but there are other indicators of major concern.
Disney has a writer problem. For some reason, Disney filled their writing departments with difficult talent. These writers were unable to create positive momentum for their own stories.
Disney hired the talent, and the talent abused known content to push unappealing stories.
Disney progressed past their political problems into story problems. When working towards something, always ask the destination. Not all progress is in the right direction.
Hope Book of Boba pulls off a Clone Wars final season and finishes strong after weak episodes. Vespa gang need to go away like the Martez sisters.
Ew…….. at the end of the day Boba Fett is a small fry in the Star Wars universe, so the odds of his series being a hit on the level of The Mandalorian was always going to be slim. Disney and Lucasfilm execs can only blame themselves for being stupid if they think anything Star Wars or Marvel has the same potential to be a mega hit. Spin off culture has got to stop and be replaced by a desire to tell big stories.
#IStandwithGina
#CancelDisney+
#WithoutRespectWeReject
Until Disney and Lucasfilm publicly make good with what they did to Gina, she doesn’t have to come back that’s more than understandable, make good with what has been allowed to the people that care about these properties, Pablo Hildago as an example, and start respecting the source and making fun entertaining movies and shows. DISNEY DOES NOT GET MY MONEY OR MY TIME! That’s all there is to it.
I’m big fan of Witcher, but he became a minor character in his own series. He’s still an amazing character. Star Wars and Marvel can’t recover from mismanagement. They softened Boba Fett. They changed Loki, Hawkeye, and Captain America. I didn’t even bother watching because it’s a train wreck. I already know it’s a disaster. I turn away.
Worth noting that only a single episode of Boba Fett released that week while Cobra Kai dropped all 10. Part of the problem is that “minutes watched” dont indicate how many people watched and watched how much. Did 1 million viewers watch the entire season that week or did 10 million watch the first episode. It’s impossible to tell.
That’s a great point… however, you also have to consider the bandwidth of consumers. Wouldn’t you hope for lots of rewatching in a premiere of anything with a hundred million dollar budget? I’ll grant you that there’s a major variable here, but The Mandalorian Season 2 opening tripled the Boba Fett series start (if Nielsen is on the ball). Maybe that’s a better apples-to-apples comparison that portends trouble.