'Hawkeye' Performance Underwhelming for Marvel Studios - Inside the Magic

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – with Christmas lights twinkling, holiday music playing, and Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye finally debuting on Disney+.

This week marked the premiere of the MCU’s next Disney+ Original series starring Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton/Hawkeye) and Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop).

But according to new data, Hawkeye is Disney’s lowest-performing live-action MCU series to date.

On November 24, Disney+ launched the first two episodes of Marvel Studios’ highly anticipated six-episode series Hawkeye.

It’s been quite the year for Marvel Studios. Kevin Feige’s studio has released a lot of original content on Disney+, including WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, and What If…?

Marvel fans have also been treated to new movies from the MCU including Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow (2021), Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and most recently, Eternals (2021).

With such a busy year for Marvel Studios, viewership for Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been surprisingly steady, with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki becoming the most viewed Disney+ series to date.

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s WandaVision even gained some Emmy nominations and a Grammy nomination for Kathryn Hahn’s “Agatha All Along”.

So, how did Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye perform this week?

SambaTV, a third-party researcher, released data on how Hawkeye‘s opening two episodes performed compared to the other live-action Marvel Studios television shows this year.

According to The Direct, 1.5 million U.S. households watched Hawkeye‘s first episode of the series in its five-day debut. Though not a low viewing figure, it puts Hawkeye as Marvel’s lowest-performing debut since the launch of Disney’s streaming service.

For comparison, WandaVision gained 1.6 million U.S. household views for its premiere, while The Falcon and the Winter Soldier beat that with 1.8 million.

Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was a huge success for Disney+, drawing an incredible 2.5 million households in the United States in its first five days.

With Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova yet to star in the Hawkeye series, as well as rumors of Kingpin’s appearance, these viewing figures will surely increase over the next few weeks.

Pugh’s character was last seen in Black Widow‘s end credits scene meeting Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Val, with an assignment to find Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton.

Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye is set in post-blip New York City where former Avenger Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has a seemingly simple mission: get back to his family for Christmas. But when a threat from his past shows up, Hawkeye reluctantly teams up with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), a 22-year-old skilled archer and his biggest fan, to unravel a criminal conspiracy.

It was recently revealed to be Marvel’s most anticipated project, since the release of its Christmas-themed trailer. 

Hawkeye also features Maya Lopez aka Echo (Alaqua Cox) the first Native American superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She will be the second deaf character to debut in the MCU since Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) in Eternals.

More on Hawkeye

The official description of the latest series on Disney+ reads:

Marvel Studios’ “Hawkeye” stars Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, who teams up with another well-known archer from the Marvel comics, Kate Bishop, played by Hailee Steinfeld. The cast also includes Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, Brian d’Arcy James and newcomer Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez. “Hawkeye” is helmed by Rhys Thomas and directing duo Bert and Bertie. “Hawkeye” debuts on Disney+ Nov. 24, 2021.

What did you think of the first two episodes of Hawkeye? Let us know!