It’s hard to quantify what constitutes a certifiable smash hit on streaming when there’s so much content spread across so many platforms, never mind that a lot of it only airs in certain countries depending on rights and distribution deals. Whatever way you want to cut it, though, Arthdal Chronicles: The Sword of Amarun hasn’t gotten off to a stellar start on its new home.
There was a lot of interest in the returning historical fantasy epic for the sole reason that its 18-episode first run saw it find a much bigger audience after it expanded well beyond its native Korea upon being added to the Netflix library. However, the platform didn’t opt to pick up the on-demand option for season 2, allowing Disney Plus to swoop in.
Debuting this past Saturday with a three-episode premiere before the remaining installments begin rolling out at regular intervals, The Sword of Amarun isn’t a worldwide Disney Plus exclusive, but it was added to a slew of notable markets including the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and many others on top of that. Unfortunately, the early data isn’t painting the picture of a hit.
Per FlixPatrol, Arthdal Chronicles has only made it onto the Top 10 in two countries following its much-vaunted debut, and one of them is its native Korea. Taiwan is the other, but even at that it barely made it onto the rankings by taking up the tenth and final position on the local charts. Nobody was expecting a monster, to be fair, but it hasn’t exactly torn it up in the countries where subscribers had the option of bingeing its latest chapters.