The world has a new hero in Iman Vellanis Ms. Marvel. Her new Disney+ show has just landed and bright and vibrant Kamala Khan is here. In general, viewers love it. The Direct’s own Savannah Sanders remarked on how the show “Has its own unique voice and something to say, while also grounding the MCU in a way that few projects ever have.”
Despite the praise, there’s the usual vocal minority of kids reviewing the show for the wrong reasons — not that there’s any right reason to practice at all.
Vellani’s excitement for the role and her general love for Marvel should be reason enough for most fans to tune in and give the new hero a try. Not to mention how she’ll star in next year’s The Marvels, which will further cement Kamala Khan as a key member of the MCU.
Despite all the positive reactions to the new Disney+ series and the limitless potential that its story has, the ratings for viewers of the project are good for the first five days and they don’t quite reach the same heights as other series. In fact, they’re some of the worst Marvel Studios has ever seen.
Ms. Marvel gets a lackluster audience
Wonder
Samba TV reported that Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel is not doing well in terms of viewership in the United States. In its report, the service revealed that just 775,000 US households watched the premiere episode within the first five days of its release on Disney+.
That makes the new coming-of-age story one of the underperforming MCU debuts on Disney+ to date. The only possible series behind it is What If…?, although that project only has premiere dates for its first day.
For comparison, here are the five-day premiere viewership for Marvel Studios’ other shows:
WandaVision: 1.6 million
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: 1.8 million
Loki: 2.5 million
What happened if..?: 281,000 (viewers on day one)
hawk eye: 1.5 million
moon knight: 1.8 million
Why More People Should Watch Ms. Marvel
One of the biggest factors against Ms. Marvel that none of Marvel’s other outings have had to contend with is the competition. Currently, the new parts of the Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi will premiere on the same day and time. So not only does it have competition, but it also goes against Ewan McGregor’s favorite character, whose show debuted with 2.14 million viewers during the same time slot. The game was rigged from the start.
Despite these numbers, it’s important not to correlate audience size and quality; they are not mutually exclusive. Many have named Ms. Marvel as one of their favorite MCU series to date, despite the immature review bombing and underperforming.
Given that the upcoming Andor and She-Hulk will also overlap, those lower viewership ratings could become the norm. Many feel that Disney should consider releasing Marvel and Star Wars content on separate dates, which would help each project perform better and stay part of the internet conversation for longer.
Hopefully they make sense of this strategy, otherwise it will only get worse as more projects are released later.
The first two episodes of Ms. Marvel are streaming now on Disney+.