Is the MCU Brand Damaged? Hawkeye Performs Worse than Loki, WandaVision, and Falcon

The first episode of Marvel’s Hawkeye on Disney+ drew 1.5M U.S. households over the Wednesday-Sunday holiday stretch, while 1.3M stuck around and watched the second episode.

This is via Deadline and according to the latest streaming viewership stats from Samba TV which measures 3M U.S. households, and what they watch on streaming over a five-minute increment. That first episode number for Hawkeye trails the 5-day U.S. household viewership figure for Disney+/Marvel’s Loki which was watched by 2.5M homes over June 9-13 by -40%. Hawkeye‘s first episode premiere also ranks behind Loki‘s finale which pulled in 1.9M homes over five days per Samba TV. Hawkeye‘s 5-day is also behind the 3-day premieres of Disney+/Marvel’s Falcon and the Winter Solider (1.8M) and WandaVision (1.6M).

The number of Disney+ subscribers stands at 118.1M worldwide, with roughly more than a third of that coming from North America. This means less than 3% of their subscribers have bothered to watch the latest Marvel Studios series, which seems strange given that this one focuses on one of the original Avengers team members. In fact, Hawkeye has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since his first appearance as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in 2011’s Thor.

This is on the heels of tentpole films like Black Widow, Shang Chi, and Eternals all progressively underperforming and performing lower than each one’s predecessor. As we reported yesterday, their latest animation ‘Encato,’ premiered as a flop at the box office. Could we be at peak Disney and the MCU? Has Disney abused the Marvel Studios brand? Or is Hawkeye just not a very popular character? Perhaps next month’s Spider-Man sequel will sufficiently reinvigorate the struggling brand.

Hawkeye, which critics have praised at 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, follows Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) as she takes up the bow and arrow and title of the Avenger Hawkeye, as she encounters the original hero Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) in NYC while he’s on holiday with his family. Hawkeye is the fourth live-action MCU series on Disney+.