After five new Disney+ shows joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2021, this year kicked off with Oscar Isaac's Moon Knight as the first new streaming property in Phase 4's second year. Bringing a new character into the franchise via Disney's streaming platform for the first time, Moon Knight became must-see TV over its six-week run, particularly since Season 1 is the only confirmed season for the show thus far.
As a whole, the MCU has seen overwhelming success on Disney+, with nearly every single new outing topping the charts at some point during its release schedule over the past 16 months. Even with concerns about Moon Knight's quality after its first four episodes were released to the press for early review, this new outing brought that same excellent standard of quality as its four live-action predecessors.
Now that all six episodes have been available to stream on Disney+ for nearly a month, many fans are wondering how Moon Knight stacked up against its companions in terms of viewership numbers since it premiered on March 30. Now, the numbers are in, and it appears that Season 1 viewership for Moon Knight is something that Marvel Studios should be immensely proud of.
Moon Knight Viewership Numbers Revealed
Nielsen's streaming rankings shared the final viewership numbers for Marvel Studios' Moon Knight and how those numbers compared to the other MCU Disney+ shows.
From May 2 to May 8, fans spent 715 million minutes watching the show, which premiered its final episode on May 4. This is up from 681 million views the week before, and the series as a whole grew in viewership during four of the five weeks following its debut on March 30 (the only small dip came in Week 4).
In total, Moon Knight earned just under 3.7 billion minutes of watch time, which is the fourth-most of any live-action MCU Disney+ series to date. It comes in at about 415 million views behind The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and about 240 million views above Hawkeye.
The full list of watch time minutes for all five shows can be seen below:
WandaVision: 4.8B
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: 4.15B
Loki: 5.23B
Hawkeye: 3.46B
Moon Knight: 3.7B
For perspective, Moon Knight is the shortest of these five shows in terms of total runtime, while WandaVision is the longest.
WandaVision: 357 minutes
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: 324 minutes
Loki: 297 minutes
Hawkeye: 294 minutes
Moon Knight: 287 minutes
Upon calculating the average number of times each minute of a series has been watched (total minutes watched divided by runtime), one can determine which Disney+ project was watched the most, without length as a factor.
The results show that Moon Knight surpassed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye, but lagged behind Loki and WandaVision - while also showing the God of Mischief's solo outing to be by far the most popular of the bunch. The only major difference with this metric is how it demonstrates the Egyptian epic just exceeded the Captain America spin-off:
- Loki: 17.61M
- WandaVision: 13.45M
- Moon Knight: 12.89M
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: 12.81M
- Hawkeye: 11.77M
Moon Knight Keeps Up with High Marvel Viewership
Even though Moon Knight may rank on the lower end of viewership for the MCU's Disney+ shows, its numbers still compare well alongside so much other content from Disney's streaming network. Its premiere episode came in second for total views behind Tom Hiddleston's Loki, and almost every week, it brought in more viewers from across the fandom
These viewership stats show just how many people were invested in Moon Knight's run, especially considering how those numbers increased with each new episode and each addition to Marc Spector's journey. It's also impressive to see that these numbers remain high even more than a year into Marvel's tenure on Disney+, and while the MCU's first show in WandaVision remains the high mark, everything that came after it is making a mark as well.
Now, the big question is whether these numbers will have any influence on Marvel Studios giving Moon Knight a second season on Disney+. Evidence is out in the open that there are already soft plans for it to happen, and the show's cast has discussed what they would like to see in a new round of episodes, but that will be a decision for another day.
For now, Season 1 of Moon Knight is available to stream on Disney+.
