‘The Mandalorian’ Still the Most Popular ‘Star Wars’ Series on Disney Plus
New data analysis from The Wrap concludes that The Mandalorian remains the most popular Star Wars series on Disney Plus, beating Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is based on studying and comparing several sources that track online demand for the four live-action seasons of shows that have been released so far (both seasons of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Obi-Wan Kenobi).
Nielsen has released viewership data for the first five episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and concluded that, in the first four weeks of availability, the series collected 3.3 billion minutes of viewership in the U.S. Meanwhile, The Mandalorian season 1 had 2.5 billion minutes of viewership in the U.S. over its first four weeks of release, back in 2019. This, of course, happened back when Disney Plus had less than 25 million subscribers in the U.S. — they had almost doubled that number by the time Obi-Wan Kenobi was released.
There are obviously several factors in favor of The Mandalorian — it was released a month before The Rise of Skywalker, when Star Wars was in everyone’s mind, it faced less competition, both on Disney Plus (Kenobi faced off against Ms. Marvel, though that didn’t put up too much of a fight) and against other streaming services (it opened against the first six episodes of Stranger Things, which debuted to record-breaking numbers in streaming history, and a week before The Boys season 3, which also delivered very strong numbers), and obviously had a little green creature that took the world by storm in late 2019. At the same time, Obi-Wan Kenobi was the result of a years-long fan demand to bring Ewan McGregor back in his iconic Jedi role, while The Mandalorian was marketed as an “original” series that barely even acknowledged the franchise. The episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi were also longer, on average (45.6 minutes vs. 38.8 minutes on the first five episodes of each series).
By the end of season 1, The Mandalorian accumulated 5.3 billion minutes of viewership, while The Mandalorian season 2 topped it with 8.3 billion minutes. The Book of Boba Fett, with seven episodes, came in shorter with 4.4 billion minutes streamed.
Viewership numbers can be deceiving at times, or simply tell half the story. The Wrap also looked at data from Parrot Analytics, a company that tracks online demand and piracy numbers that can complement other indicators like Nielsen’s numbers, and compares each show with the average streaming series of their time. The company found that both seasons of The Mandalorian were, during their runs, the most in-demand show worldwide (also the only Star Wars show to reach that record). Season 1 had 118.9 times more demand than the average show back in November/December 2019, while season 2 had 82.5 times more demand than the average show in November/December 2020. The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi had, respectively, 62.6x and 75.3x.
While trying to make sense of Parrot Analytics’ numbers, it seems like season 1 of The Mandalorian was more popular than season 2. This is not necessarily the case, as the company is not interested in comparing two shows (or seasons) that were released at different times against each other, but rather against their competition. Also, the company tracks global piracy data, and between the release of both seasons of The Mandalorian, Disney Plus expanded to many territories across the globe, meaning that season 1 was more pirated than season 2 internationally. Obi-Wan Kenobi also had less demand among its competitors than The Mandalorian season 2 did, but of course, the former was pivoted against the immense popularity of Stranger Things, The Boys season 3, and the new season of Peaky Blinders hitting Netflix.
The Wrap also included data from the app TV Time, which showed that, of its 21 million users, 14.6% more people marked Obi-Wan Kenobi as watched than they did The Mandalorian season 2, and 86.6% more than The Book of Boba Fett in its first month. Back in May, far more users were anticipating Ewan McGregor’s return to the Star Wars galaxy than they did both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett 10 days before their release.
Another company contacted by The Wrap was Reelgood, which has a userbase of 5 million people and compared the streaming activity of Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Mandalorian season 2, and The Book of Boba Fett during their first two weeks of release, and compared it to the rest of Disney Plus content. They found that Obi-Wan Kenobi was 144 times more in demand than the average Disney Plus show, while The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett were 86 and 74 times more in demand than the average show, during their first 14 days. Note that Obi-Wan Kenobi also had four episodes released within its first 14 days, while the other two shows had two episodes.
Finally, when using Google Trends to track the demand for each show over time, since the release of Disney Plus, they found that The Mandalorian is well ahead of its Star Wars competition, seeing a large peak in the week of December 18, 2020, when Chapter 16 was released (and The Book of Boba Fett was announced). We have replicated the chart here, and included a worldwide comparison as well. The horizontal axis shows the time evolution, from November 1, 2019 (Disney Plus debuted November 12) to July 19, 2022. The vertical axis shows how much each term (“Mandalorian”, “Boba Fett”, and “Obi Wan”) was searched on Google, compared to the highest point of demand. This means, for instance, that between May 29 and June 4, 2022, the term “Obi Wan” was googled half the times the term “Mandalorian” was searched between December 13-19, 2020 (its peak). Check them out:
While Disney has not released definitive numbers that may enlighten us on this topic, it seems rather clear that The Mandalorian remains the most popular Star Wars show on Disney Plus, even after the release of Obi-Wan Kenobi. It will be interesting to revisit these numbers after season 3 is done, sometime in March/April 2023.
For now, the next live-action show in line is Andor, which will have its two-episode premiere on August 31st.
SOURCE: The Wrap
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
