Mark me as shocked, and I mean truly shocked. Whereas I was told that the sixth episode of The Book of Boba Fett had tripled the twenty-four hour ratings of other Boba Fett entries, I had expected to see a major incline for the show’s weekly ratings. And though I believe based on sources and Google Trends data that the sixth episode did tremendously well in its first twenty-four hours, Nielsen is showing that Disney has a very serious problem on its hands. Instead of the weekly averaging skyrocketing The Book of Boba Fett in contention for the top streaming show online, the show is (at best) stagnant from Week 5 to Week 6.
This is the moment you can know that Star Wars is in trouble, and everyone in the executive positions of The Walt Disney Company must know it too.
Let’s take a look at the Nielsen charts out just today for Original Streaming Series:
| Rank |
SVOD Provider |
Program Name |
# of Episodes |
Minutes (Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netflix | Ozark | 37 | 2,372 |
| 2 | Amazon | Reacher | 8 | 1,843 |
| 3 | Netflix | Sweet Magnolias | 20 | 1,320 |
| 4 | Netflix | Raising Dion | 17 | 1,133 |
| 5 | Netflix | The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window | 8 | 1,121 |
| 6 | Netflix | All Of Us Are Dead | 12 | 850 |
| 7 | Disney+ | The Book of Boba Fett | 6 | 776 |
| 8 | Netflix | In From The Cold | 8 | 658 |
| 9 | Netflix | Murderville | 6 | 351 |
| 10 | Hulu | Pam & Tommy | 3 | 312 |
Okay, now compare that to the week prior:
Do you see what I see?
I see a show that went up only thirty million additional minutes of streaming, despite a new episode that literally blew the roof off of the Star Wars universe. Seeing Luke Skywalker training Grogu had the show hitting its top marks for internet searches, it had the community rocking, it had YouTube channels of every position banking massive viewership, and even the review data showed that audiences loved the episode. And yet… the show’s minutes streamed per episode went DOWN.
I don’t have a takeaway yet for this one. Like I said, I’m shocked. I’ve been communicating with the folks over at Valliant Renegade and we’ll be looking at the data more in-depth later today to get a handle on this.
Consider this: The Book of Boba Fett had its penultimate episode with Luke Skywalker, Grogu, The Mandalorian, and more surprise cameos, and it was beaten soundly by The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window. One-hundred million dollar budget, and you’re getting stomped… STOMPED… by Sweet Magnolias. What in the world should we make of this? The only thing that I can tell you is that Star Wars is in deep, deep trouble; and if Star Wars is in deep, deep trouble, Disney+ and Disney investors had better be sweating bullets. You want me to watch subscribers numbers shoot up in earnings calls and then ignore that Disney+ shows are being walloped with no discernible growth off of those subscriptions?
Would you like to know just how bad it is for Disney+? How about checking the top ten original movies, where Disney typically wins just based off of kids sitting in front a TV on loop for babysitting purposes:
| Rank |
SVOD Provider |
Program Name |
# of Episodes |
Minutes (Millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Disney+ | Encanto | 1 | 1,329 |
| 2 | Netflix | Home Team (2022) | 1 | 596 |
| 3 | Netflix | Despicable Me 2 | 1 | 457 |
| 4 | Netflix | The Tinder Swindler | 1 | 405 |
| 5 | Disney+ | The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild | 1 | 311 |
| 6 | Netflix | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | 1 | 271 |
| 7 | Netflix | The Lucky One | 1 | 221 |
| 8 | Netflix | Despicable Me | 1 | 197 |
| 9 | Disney+ | Eternals (2021) | 1 | 197 |
| 10 | Disney+ | Moana | 1 | 182 |
Yeah, that’s Disney with a total of THREE movies in the top ten, and the only thing saving Disney+ is a miraculous Encanto movie that flopped in theaters. If not for Encanto becoming a cultural phenomenon, these ratings would be a bloodbath.
Now I’ll have more to say about what is going on with Star Wars once I get a chance to confer with other analysts and get into the data. But for now, just know that this is a huge blow to The Book of Boba Fett if nothing more. For perspective, this show had horrible ratings through its first four episodes, then had a boost for five and six, but its current ceiling didn’t even match Loki at a time when Loki only had four episodes! Plus, Disney+ had far fewer subscribers according to their earnings report. By the time Loki was hitting its finale, it was topping the billion mark in minutes streamed. But Loki wasn’t attempting to deliver a decades-long desire for fans of a franchise either. Yet it was cruising beyond what Boba Fett would eventually do.
Yes, we need to see the finale numbers for The Book of Boba Fett. Maybe they see a huge uptick. It’s also time, however, to ask if Star Wars is a demonstrably damaged brand.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Many of us have known that since 2018, and yet Disney STILL has the same people in place that caused it. Seriously, what does it take for Disney to make DRASTIC changes in the leadership of Lucasfilm?
They can create a suspect MeToo thing and dump John Lassiter which destroys Pixar, but somehow the heads in Lucasfilm are untouchable? I really don’t get it.
Maybe it’s “The Last Jedi” effect that gave “Loki” an unrealistic expectation of performance. People absolutely hated Loki, but they gave it a chance and watched it to the end. This was due to the good reception from Scarlett Witch that thankfully kept close to source material. They aren’t in a forgiving mood for every new disastrous Marvel and Star Wars episode and series. With Star Wars, the “Gina Carano” effect continues. People are done with investing their soul (or force) with Disney’s terrible treatment of their childhood fantasy. Boba Fett was a mess and it was quickly confirmed to fans.
Social media reactions do not equal general audience (GA) interest (of all, maybe Google Trends is the closest). Nielsen greatly increased with the introduction of Din, yet only slightly with Luke Skywalker. Perhaps an item to consider is that the GA is not that interested in the character: i.e. – Din’s introduction made sense in The Book of Boba Fett, but not Luke’s (so it jumped the shark for them). Likewise, if OK with Luke in The Book of Boba Fett, maybe the technology is not at a point that Luke can be presented in such a way (maybe too off) – for an extended length, an actual actor may be better for now, until the technology improves (some have mentioned Sebastian Stan, as an example, or an unknown actor). I think these are other variables to consider. I trust you and Valliant Renegade, but I wanted to offer the above for consideration. Thank you for reading/listening
While reactions aren’t directly correlated with ratings, they tend to indicate trends. What’s so incredible about these ratings is that despite audiences knowing The Mandalorian was likely to appear in the sixth episode, and despite major characters like Luke and Grogu showing up, the 700 million minute ceiling didn’t budge… and the average per episode actually dropped. That suggests a very serious problem for the franchise, and one that I’m still pondering.
Great thoughts, and thank you for all the times you give us your insights.