The Star Wars brand may finally be dead, or it’s certainly on its way there. Not even The Mandalorian season 3 has been able to stop the decline, according to a recent article from The Bespin Bulletin.
According to the news outlet, The Mandalorian season 3 debuted with fewer views than The Book of Boba Fett, which didn’t do as well as they hoped, and these latest results are disheartening given that Disney hasn’t publicly commented on the show’s popularity. That usually means there isn’t much to brag about.
The previously most popular Star Wars series also launched 28% less than Obi-Wan Kenobi and, worse yet. In contrast to cable and broadcast television, streaming services only allow third parties to estimate their ratings. Yet, they publish press releases promoting each and every popular Disney+ show. The corporation has not commented on the popularity of The Mandalorian since season 3’s debut.
Disney knows the real figures, and it’s certainly bad for business if they’re choosing to keep quiet. Star Wars simply isn’t as well-liked as it once was, especially in light of the last trilogy’s deteriorating box office performance, but if the gloom is beginning to spread to the television series, it proves that no aspect of the venerable franchise is immune.
Even with the decline in views, The Mandalorian’s season 3 premiere was still one of Disney+’s most watched debuts ever, and although that achievement is deserving of praise, it is nothing compared to Pedro Pascal’s other shows. The fact that the debut was strong, but we’re not hearing much else is pretty telling. In fact, more viewers have been tuning in to Pascal’s The Last of Us on HBO with each new episode, reaching a peak of over 6 million for the most recent season 1 finale.
Over 1 billion minutes of The Last of Us have been watched, according to Nielsen’s third-party tracking, which are both impressive numbers; if Star Wars were accomplishing such feats, wouldn’t we all be aware of it? We did when Loki became the most watched debut on the service and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever surpassed a billion minutes, but for Star Wars, nothing.
The next notable Star Wars content to be released is Ahsoka, Skeleton Crew, and The Acolyte all coming to Disney+ within the next year, along with Andor season 2. But each of these series will likely only appeal to the most hardcore fans of the franchise, a dwindling audience to be sure. And with each new show, with it’s own backstory, will raise the bar for newcomers ever higher.
Four years after The Rise of Skywalker disappointed fans worldwide, there are no new feature films in development. There are only streaming projects on the horizon. It’s hardly good for the future of Star Wars if the critically acclaimed franchise savior, The Mandalorian, is now drawing less viewers with each new season. The saddest part is that it seems no one at Disney or LucasFilm understands what that future will look like either.
Unless something massively changes soon, the brand is going to be officially labelled as “dead,” a designation our writers have been saying for years.
