The Mandalorian is the first live-action Star Wars series, and it still has the highest viewership compared to every other original program on Disney Plus. The series has some stiff competition against The Book of Boba Fett and the various MCU series, but The Mandalorian remains the undefeated king.
From The Hollywood Reporter, the impressive numbers for the series don’t lie. Premiering on Nov. 12, 2019, The Mandalorian‘s first season’s 7-week run accumulated 5.42 billion minutes of viewing time and topped out at 1.15 billion during the week the finale premiered. In 2021, Disney Plus users watched 14.5 billion minutes of the series over the course of the year, and 8.4 billion minutes came from the eight weeks season two of The Mandalorian episodes debuted.
By comparison, The Book of Boba Fett‘s viewership for its seven-episode first season came to 4.4 billion minutes. The series wasn’t received as favorably as The Mandalorian, but it still managed to hold steady numbers.
Loki, starring Tom Hiddleston, is The Mandalorian’s closest competitor. The series is so popular that it was the most pirated show of 2021. The villain became a fan favorite in the Thor movies and in The Avengers, and it beat out every other MCU show with its season one viewing numbers coming to 5.23 billion minutes during its June-July six-episode run. It’s also the first Marvel series to exceed 1 billion in a single week.
It will be interesting to see how the upcoming Disney Plus original series from Star Wars and Marvel fare. Moon Knight is their first attempt at a Marvel Disney Plus series with a character that hasn’t been previously established in the MCU, but it benefits from the star power of Oscar Isaac and favorable early reviews that could bolster it.
Obi-Wan Kenobi might be the series to topple The Mandalorian’s first place title. Obi-Wan is one of the most well-known characters in the Star Wars franchise, and there’s momentous excitement for Hayden Christensen to return as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader facing off against Ewan Mcgregor in the titular role.
The Mandalorian is currently streaming on Disney Plus.