Hawkeye Premiere Ratings Lowest Of All Live-Action MCU Disney+ Shows

New data regarding the premiere of Hawkeye on Disney+ last week shows that the series had the lowest viewership of any of Marvel’s live-action streaming series yet. The series finally gives Clint Barton/Hawkeye a chance to shine on his own, as he is the last of the original six heroes from The Avengers to receive his own title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though he did appear in three of the four Avengers flicks, in addition to Thor and Captain America: Civil War, Hawkeye is the only original Avenger not to be receiving his own movie, as the Black Widow solo film was released earlier this year.

Hawkeye is, however, starring in an original Disney+ series following in the footsteps of WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki earlier this year. Each of those series thrived on the streaming service, with WandaVision and Loki, becoming a bit of a pop culture zeitgeist during their respective runs. Hawkeye, which is based largely on Matt Fraction’s comic run with the character, is aiming not only to give Clint his due but also introduce a new face to the MCU with the character of Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld).

Unfortunately, just as Hawkeye is widely regarded as the least popular Avenger, the series premiered with the lowest viewership of any live-action MCU Disney+ series. According to data released by Samba TV, 1.5M households watched Hawkeye in its first 5 days on the service, with 1.3M returning for the second episode. This falls just short of the viewership posted by WandaVision (1.6 M in its first 3 days) and Falcon and the Winter Soldier (1.8M in 3 days). The numbers are far behind the most recent live-action Marvel Disney+ series, Loki, which impressively garnered an audience of 2.5M households in its first 5 days.

There are still areas in which Hawkeye can keep its head up though. The series did premiere far ahead of Marvel’s animated What If…?, which had 1.1M viewers in its first week. The Hawkeye series has also been received very positively, with critics and audiences praising the show’s characters and street-level approach to the Marvel universe. The series currently holds a 93% critic approval on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as an 83% audience score. With Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova bound to show up at some point, and rumors circulating that Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin will appear as well, it seems that Hawkeye could still have plenty of trick arrows left for its viewers.

Overall, it’s no big surprise that Hawkeye‘s viewership has dipped a bit from the previous live-action Marvel series. Of the four, this show is certainly the smallest in terms of scale, and it has less riding on it because of that. WandaVision was a big campy risk that set Wanda Maximoff up as a key character moving forward, Falcon and the Winter Soldier had the task of getting viewers to care for a Captain America that isn’t Steve Rogers, and Loki literally broke the multiverse. Hawkeye seems to be taking a completely different approach than these other shows, and hopefully, that will help it stand out more in the long run.

Source: Samba TV

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