Credit: Inside the MagicAfter a jaw-dropping new report confirmed the Disney+ Loki show’s staggering multi-million dollar budget, fans were left outraged, with many blasting “greedy” studio execs for not putting a fraction of that money towards the actors and writers currently on strike. However, thanks to new viewership stats, Marvel might’ve just proved precisely why Loki is worth its remarkably high price tag.
Related: Marvel’s ‘Loki’ “Sequel” Gets Disappointing Update: Report
In a particularly tumultuous year for Disney’s box office, it seems like it’s getting increasingly difficult for the company to get a good return on its investments. From the unprecedented financial flop of James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) to Pixar’s lackluster Elemental (2023), things are looking bleak, and they’re only going to get worse as the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes continue to bring Hollywood to a standstill.
Still, the company continues to dish out millions of dollars towards their upcoming projects, with Marvel’s recent Secret Invasion series reportedly having a whopping $250 million budget and Season 1 of the critically-acclaimed Star Wars spinoff, Andor, following suit.
Related: Review Of MCU ‘Loki’ Season One: Does It Warrant a Season 2?
And as Marvel gears up for the sophomore season of Loki, the new season is proving to be no exception, and Disney is banking on its success—literally. Amid the company’s recent string of big-budget blockbusters and TV shows, a new report from Forbes revealed that Tom Hiddleston’s latest rendezvous as the titular God of Mischief cost the studio a total of $141.3 million across its six episodes.
Many were quick to scrutinize its jaw-dropping price tag, with some citing recent Disney flops like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), which, similarly to Loki, also featured extensive CGI and VFX that didn’t appear to the worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Other people even claimed that Marvel giving Loki so much financial freedom was like “stealing” from the hardworking actors, writers, and VFX teams, who make a fraction of what studio heads like Bob Iger make from the success of their shows.
But is Loki actually worth its price tag? Well, according to new viewership statistics from Deadline, yes. Morals and ethics aside, Loki‘s first season holds the record for the largest U.S. premiere-day audience for any Marvel show on Disney+, as well as the number of U.S. households who streamed its first episode in the days following its debut.
This officially makes Loki Marvel’s most-watched TV show, passing other projects such as Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and even Emmy darling WandaVision. The Tom Hiddleston-led series is also the MCU’s first to receive and release a sophomore season on the streaming service, thanks mainly to Hiddleston’s fan-favorite portrayal of the character, its all-star supporting cast, impressive scope, and its formidable villain, Jonathan Majors’ Kang.
Disney has never released official viewership numbers, but thanks to services like Nielsen, which tracks U.S. households’ streaming habits, we’ve gotten a rough idea of which TV series are being watched in droves. As for Loki specifically, there’s typically a viewership dropoff between the first episode of a Disney+ show and its finale, and considering the report only shows statistics for its premiere, it’s hard to say if audiences tuned in for its remaining episodes. But given fans’ overwhelmingly positive responses to the show, people almost certainly watched it full through.
It’s also worth noting that the Loki Season 2 trailer made franchise history as become the biggest online trailer debut ever for any series on Disney+ with a whopping 80 million views in its first few hours on the internet. With big names like Owen Wilson, Ke Huy Quan, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Tara Strong attached to the project, it’s no wonder audiences can’t wait to see more of Loki’s Multiversal shenanigans.
Despite Marvel’s many hits and misses when attempting to expand its catalog of Disney+ originals, it appears that the God of Mischief still reigns supreme. But given that he’s one of the last remaining characters from the early days of the MCU, that doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.
It remains to be seen if Loki can live up to fans’ very high expectations and its even higher budget when Season 2 debuts on Disney+ on October 6, 2023.
What do you think of Loki receiving such a high price tag amid its record-breaking viewership numbers? Do you think the Marvel show deserves it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.