Marvel shows on Disney+: which series are most popular, will 2024 series Echo break MCU streaming record?

New Marvel series Echo, which follows deaf superhero Maya Lopez and also features Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and Vincent D'Onofrio’s Kingpin lands on Disney+ in the UK on Wednesday (January 11). 

Echo is the first MCU series to debut on two platforms simultaneously, as it will be released on both Hulu and Disney+ in the US at the same time. Additionally, it is the shortest Marvel series on the platform by number of episodes, with just five instalments.

The show comes amid a turbulent time for Marvel, with recent box office flops and the removal of their presumed star Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror following his domestic violence conviction, but the series faces an uphill struggle to turn the tide for a massive franchise that has produces some of the most popular shows of the last three years.

Which MCU shows on Disney+ are the most popular?

Exact streaming figures for Disney+ shows are not publicly available, however, the number of viewers who watched the season premieres of each show is known, and Loki is far and away the most popular MCU series on the platform by this metric. 10.9 million viewers worldwide watched the season two premiere of Loki within the first three days of its release, whilst the finale attracted 11.2 million over the same window.

Other popular MCU titles include The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Hawkeye with up to 10 million viewers watching the shows over the course of their run.

However, just as Marvel films have struggled to perform at the box office lately, recent MCU series releases on Disney+ have also seen a drop in viewership. She-Hulk attracted 1.5 million US viewers over its first five days, but Ms. Marvel saw just 775,000 US viewers tune in for the premiere over the same period of time when it was released in June 2022.

Secret Invasion, which premiered in June 2023, is the second least-viewed MCU show, with 995,000 Americans watching the premiere over a five day period.

Will Echo break a Disney+ streaming record?

Marvel’s latest effort will be up against it to break the record for the most-streamed series on the platform. It will have to beat a worldwide audience of 10.9 million to do better than the second season of Loki. The series is unlikely to do so as Marvel, and superhero projects more generally, struggle across the board.

Recent MCU film The Marvels was the franchises least successful film to date, and probably lost the studio $100 million, and the latest shows on Disney+ have struggled to top 1 million viewers in the US over a five day premiere - Loki season two managed 2.5 million, but this is an exception being that it focuses on one of the most popular characters in the MCU, and followed an extremely successful first season.

Alaqua Cox’s superhero Echo has only previously featured in Hawkeye, and will be unknown to more casual Marvel fans, so the series has a much smaller built in fanbase. Echo will probably struggle to match even Secret Invasion’s draw of fewer than one million US viewers for its season premiere. In fact, the series could break a negative record, becoming the least watched MCU series on Disney+ to date.