Obi-Wan Kenobi Scored Disney+ Its Most-Watched Premiere Ever
He may be trying to lay low in the series, but the return of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) has certainly made a splash among "Star Wars" fans. Disney+ has reported that the two-episode premiere of the new series is their most-watched Disney+ premiere to date. To be clear, the series didn't just reportedly beat out past premieres of "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," but every other Disney+ original series premiere since the streamer's debut in 2019.
As with most streaming data, this comes straight from the streamer itself, with Disney not making any of its actual viewership numbers public. Instead, the company shared the superlative via press release, calling "Obi-Wan Kenobi" the "most-watched Disney+ Original series premiere globally to date, based on hours streamed in an opening weekend." It's unclear whether or not the show's view count got a bit of a head start thanks to its surprise early debut, nor whether the streamer is incorporating an extra day's worth of data into their report since the show dropped on a long holiday weekend.
It's the streamer's biggest draw to date
Though Disney is tight-lipped about its measurement methods and actual viewership numbers, Variety's data pulled from Nielson's SVOD charts shows that ahead of the premiere of "Obi-Wan Kenobi," "The Mandalorian" seemed to be the Disney+ series that had clocked the most minutes of overall viewing time. The first live-action "Star Wars" TV series of the Disney Lucasfilm era has pulled in massive numbers of viewers over its two-season run, easily beating out single-season Marvel shows like "WandaVision" and "Loki." With only two episodes under its belt, "Obi-Wan Kenobi" surely hasn't bested the impressive long-term viewership numbers "The Mandalorian" has, but it's off to an impressive start.
It's easy to see why viewers would flock to the new series en masse. Even as a casual "Star Wars" watcher, I've always been charmed by McGregor's turn as Obi-Wan, who mentored Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen, who also appears in the new show) in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. Two decades later, the series is set to finally fill in some of the beloved franchises' gap years, picking up 10 years after Anakin became Darth Vader and featuring a young Luke and Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair). Plus, new characters like Moses Ingram's punishing Inquisitor Reva and Kumail Nanjiani's con man Haja so far make the show feel like its own distinctive thing, rather than a rehash of familiar characters and elements.
According to Disney, viewership of other "Star Wars" titles tripled this weekend in terms of hours watched, meaning fans are also revisiting the cinematic stories that bookend this one. "Obi-Wan Kenobi" airs Wednesdays on Disney+.