The Star Wars franchise has been central to the success of Disney+, which launched in 2019 with The Mandalorian as its flagship program. A massive critical and ratings hit, it instantly made Disney a streaming juggernaut and minted TV’s newest star: Baby Yoda (now known as Grogu). Since then, Disney has released five new live action streaming titles: The Book of Boba Fett (December 2021), Obi-Wan Kenobi (May 2022), Andor (September 2022), Ahsoka (August 2023) and The Acolyte (June 2024). After three successful seasons (more on that later), The Mandalorian moves to the big screen summer 2026 with the first Star Wars movie in seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu. Meanwhile, Lucasfilm is still struggling to find the hit’s successor.
Disney’s newest Star Wars entry, The Acolyte, wraps its debut season on Tuesday, but the viewership trend is already concerning. The premiere was the biggest for Disney+ in 2024 with 2.94M views for its first episode in its first two days. Disney’s second-best opening this year, Echo, only earned 1.17M views for its first episode on day 1-2. The Acolyte even bested the first two days of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which had 2.49M views for its first episode.
Despite this strong initial showing, The Acolyte had a steep dropoff when its third episode premiered the following week, with viewership for the first two days decreasing 22%. The fourth episode dropped even farther with a 9% decrease in views from episode 3. Strong word-of-mouth for the well-reviewed, thrilling fifth episode seem to have righted the ship, with episode 6 reaping a 19% increase in views for the first two days compared to episode 5. If more viewers are gained back by the finale, perhaps that can justify Disney greenlighting a second season.
Ahsoka, Disney’s other most recent live action Star Wars series, has a stronger viewership story. While there was a 16% decrease in views between episodes 1 and 3, those fans were regained with the return of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in episode 5. That chapter had 4.10M views in the first two days, and the finale’s first two days had 3.98M views, more than the 3.26M views for Ahsoka’s premiere. This puts Ahsoka at more net views than The Acolyte to date, not to mention its increased viewership by the end of its season. Strong in the force, indeed.
Not even Christensen’s presence could save Obi-Wan Kenobi, though. Upon release, Obi-Wan Kenobi looked like a massive hit. It launched with 7.52M views for the premiere’s first two days, but then dropped to 4.74M first two days views for the third episode the following week. That’s a 37% decrease. By its finale, Obi-Wan was down to 3.91M views in the first two days. While that’s a bad dropoff, it’s still over 1M views higher than The Acolyte’s opening. Paraphrasing Obi-Wan himself, the viewership was good…from a certain point of view.
The Mandalorian remains the standard of success for Star Wars on Disney+. Season 3 Episode 1 had 5.72M views in the first two days, and the finale only dropped to 5.39M views, just a 6% decrease. While it never reached the single-episode heights of Obi-Wan’s premiere, this data indicates fans finished the season and would come back for more.
Disney is banking on just that, as they will soon ask fans to buy a ticket for The Mandalorian and Grogu, in theaters summer 2026. It’s still unclear if another Star Wars series can capture the dedicated and broad audience of The Mandalorian. Despite the data, we might be wise to remember the words of Han Solo: “Never tell me the odds.”
NOTE: “Views” calculated as Minutes Watched divided by runtime. “Views” does not represent unique viewers.
