There’s more trouble brewing for Lucasfilm, Star Wars, and the Walt Disney Company as they head towards a first-of-its-kind battle royale with Netflix at the end of May.
Even before the past few weeks, a major brawl was heading our way in the world of streaming. Disney had decided to go toe-to-toe with Netflix by releasing the new Obi-Wan Kenobi live action mini-series on the same day as Stranger Things Season 4. That’s a heck of a gamble and one that was likely made in a desire to pick up as much viewing times as possible for Nielsen ratings… and thus increase a price point they can charge advertisers in the future.
But oh how the world has changed since!
Netflix has dropped on the stock market like a lead balloon as investors get spooked over subscription losses. As a result, Netflix is looking to finally cut back on account sharing and potentially throw advertising into their service. Both are risky but now a focus of actuaries who have more power than before. All of that means Stranger Things 4 is vastly more important than it was before — if it can drive subs back to the service, we’re talking about billions of dollars at stake. If that number seems too high, remember that Netflix dropped $50 billion in market capitalization in a single day after announcing it plans to lose two million subscribers. Meanwhile for Disney, they’ve stepped into the culture wars and become a politically active corporation both in Florida and beyond; Obi-Wan could be the first real indicator as to how badly this is hurting them. If they come in far under expectations, it could not only alter the trajectory of Star Wars but it could decrease future ad revenue and harm their stock value.
All of this is to say, at a time when the two streaming services are more vulnerable than ever before, they’re about to fight for the brightness of their futures on the exact same day. And for Disney, the trend line is not going in their favor.
Here’s the Chart of the Day, maybe of the week, if you’re wanting to see why Disney may be just as at risk as Netflix even on a week in which Netflix suffered its worse financial loss ever:
That chart shows search engine requests for both Stranger Things and Obi-Wan Kenobi. To say it doesn’t look good for Disney+ would be an understatement. In the past thirty days, Kenobi is getting trounced by Stranger Things with a roughly triple-level interest baseline. If the character of Kenobi, combined with bringing back legacy talent, can’t generate more enthusiasm, this may truly be the nail in the coffin for the modern Disney Star Wars movement. While it stands to reason that surely Kenobi can reach a billion minutes in viewership for its double debut episodes, if it can’t reach 1.4 billion you could really say that Star Wars is mortally wounded. Why do I say the 1.4 billion number as a litmus test? Because over the past year, Kenobi has tracked at double the interest that Boba Fett was pulling with teaser-to-teaser and reveal-to-reveal measurements. The Book of Boba Fett capped out at around 700 million minutes viewed in a single week. Thus the calculation sets the expectation.
If you thought the drama surrounding streaming, the market, and all the issues swirling about Netflix and Disney had hit a crescendo, think again. We’re just getting started. And May 27th is when this whole thing ramps up to an eleven. We’ll see you there.
For all the latest on Star Wars, Disney, Netflix, Stranger Things… and all things that should be fun, keep checking out That Park Place! If you think you know how all this will play out, drop a comment in the section below!
