Moon Knight, the latest offering from Marvel Studios, has gotten off to a good start with viewers.
The TV show is set in the present day and follows Oscar Isaac’s Steven Grant, an employee in a museum gift shop who, while living a seemingly ordinary life, suffers from terrible blackouts. After one such blackout, he discovers that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder, a mental health condition whereby a person has multiple personalities.
His other persona is a ruthless mercenary called Marc Spector, an earthly avatar of Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the moon and vengeance. This other persona grants Spector superhuman abilities, which allow him to moonlight as the vigilante known as Moon Knight.
Moon Knight debuted on Disney Plus (opens in new tab) on Wednesday (March 30), and the data for its early performance on the streaming service is now in. According to Samba TV, (opens in new tab)which measures the viewing habits of three million Smart TV households across the US, 1.8 million US households caught Moon Knight (opens in new tab)in its first days of release.
Internationally, Moon Knight was watched by 277,000 households in the UK in its first five days of release, 88,000 households in Germany, and 11,000 in Australia. By way of comparison, that puts the show level-pegging with Falcon and the Winter Solider (opens in new tab), around 100,000 ahead of WandaVision (opens in new tab), and 300,000 ahead of Hawkeye (opens in new tab).
Not bad for a relatively unfamiliar comic book hero – but there’s still one man to factor in, and, at the moment, he looks untouchable.
Who has Moon Knight failed to overshadow?
Loki (opens in new tab). In the Tom Hiddleston-led show’s first five days on Disney Plus, it pulled in 2.5 million viewing households.
As well as that, Loki also holds the record for the most-watched Disney Plus season series finale, with 1.9 million households tuning in for its conclusion.
Does that spell trouble for Moon Knight?
Absolutely not. Tom Hiddleston has been a stalwart of the MCU for more than a decade, and his character commanded tremendous name recognition. There’s even a recent TechRadar article that ranked him as the best of Marvel’s villains (opens in new tab).
Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight, on the other hand, is brand new to the MCU (opens in new tab), with no appearance in any previous movie or series. So, all things considered, a second place start is pretty good-going for a brand new character.
Critics have praised the show, too. TechRadar’s Tom Power loved it (opens in new tab), calling it “a captivating, innovative TV series unlike anything Marvel has produced so far,” while the show boasts a very healthy 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (opens in new tab).
As with everything with made by Marvel these days, there’s a long-time plan for the character, but Isaac isn’t contracted beyond the show’s six episodes (opens in new tab). However, with numbers like this, the superhero studio will be very encouraged.