Ahsoka
Well, the numbers are in, according to third party analysts, and Ahsoka does not seem to be one of Disney’s higher-viewed Star Wars projects, according to its premiere viewership figures.
Samba, the firm that estimates these ratings because Disney won’t give out actual numbers, says that Ahsoka premiere viewership is about even with Andor, but well below The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Ahsoka got 1.2 million households to watch in its first five days, even with Andor, which featured no major Star Wars characters, only a co-star of Rogue One. Ahsoka, meanwhile is the live-action realization of 11 years of animated series from Dave Filoni, so you might have expected it to be higher.
These numbers are down 29% from season 3 of The Mandalorian which had 1.7 million households over the same time period. And they are down 50% from Obi-Wan Kenobi, which despite not being all that well-received at the time, did feature some very big Star Wars names, at least.
Obi Wan Kenobi
So what’s going on? Ahsoka is reviewing well, fans of the animated series seem to enjoy its realization of those characters onscreen. What’s the deal?
Above all else, I would probably chalk this up to plain old Disney+ Star Wars fatigue. It feels like we are almost in DC territory lately, where it doesn’t really matter if its good or bad, audience interest is simply waning.
Star Wars was just three movies and a lot of books for 30 years. Then we got the prequel trilogy. Then we had Disney buy it and it went from this sort of mythical thing to a deluge of content. Five movies and now this is the fourth major series in as many years. The mystique is sort of gone, even if there are standouts here and there like Andor, which again, was not all that widely watched, so huge audience chunks missed it entirely. And the same may be happening with Ahsoka.
Just looking at the show you know that the budget for this thing is massive. It plays like a blockbuster movie, above and beyond what we see from The Mandorian. Really, from any of these Disney+ shows so far. The budget has not been released, but it has to be enormous.
Disney+ is about to undergo some cutbacks and reductions in the number of big budget shows it puts out. Bob Iger has already said that too many Marvel shows are diluting the brand, but now, even with fewer shows, the same appears to be happening with Star Wars. These are likely not putting out the types of numbers that justify their budgets, even if they are above many of the Marvel shows.
We know the show is heading toward a big blockbuster crossover with The Mandalorian at some point, but we’ll see if numbers for the series itself can tick up over time if word of mouth sells it to a wider audience.
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