'Loki' Had The Most Watched Marvel Premiere On Disney+, So Bow Before Loki
Tom Hiddleston's Loki has been one of the most popular characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since his first appearance back in 2010's Thor, so it should come as no surprise that audiences were eager to stream the first episode of Loki when it debuted on Disney+ yesterday. It turns out they were so eager that Loki ended up having the most watched Marvel premiere on Disney+ thus far, topping WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
According to Deadline, a third-party viewership company called Samba TV has reported that Loki was viewed in 890,000 households in the United States, good enough to be "the largest US premiere-day audience for any of Marvel's Disney+ shows." And while the growth of Disney+ subscriptions overall has slowed considerably since the previous quarter, the day one viewership numbers for the Marvel shows have steadily increased. WandaVision kicked off with a reported 655,000 households, The Falcon and the Winter Solider jumped up to 759,000, and now Loki has continued that upward trend with 890,000.
"Clearly, the growing number of household tuning in on day 1 proves that the Marvel Disney+ series are growing in momentum," Samba TV stated.
However, the numbers from Samba don't quite paint the full picture: they don't include mobile views, which in this day and age is leaving a significant chuck of views unaccounted for. One final caveat: Samba counts a "view" as anything longer than five minutes.
Bow Before Loki
There has been an obsessive cult around Loki for more than ten years, so it makes sense that a show which puts him front and center would be a smash hit right out of the gate. And so far, I think the show has actually earned that level of attention, rather than just coasting on the fact that it's a Marvel property.
Showrunner Michael Waldron and his team of writers plucked Loki out of the time stream and did a great job dropping him (and us) into the totally unfamiliar environment of the Time Variance Authority, delivering tons of exposition without ever making the first episode feel like a slog. I'm excited about the variations Tom Hiddleston will get to play as the series goes on, and I'm especially thrilled with the dynamic between Hiddleston and co-star Owen Wilson – there's a little bit of a Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham vibe going on, where Wilson's Agent Mobius needs Loki's specific set of skills to help stop a mysterious killer who's bouncing across time. I can't wait to see how the show evolves, but I'm definitely digging it so far.