Percy Jackson Dominates on Streaming
In 2010, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief earned $226.4 million in global box office, almost in spite of its studio.
Author Rick Riordan, the creator of this franchise, lamented that executives at Fox 2000 Pictures thoroughly ignored him.
Once Fox purchased the rights, it chose to adapt the story as it saw fit, independent of the author’s opinions.
In the process, Fox ceded tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
Percy Jackson was popular enough to gain a sequel, Sea of Monsters, which also earned $200 million despite poor reviews.
Thankfully, Disney later purchased most of Fox’s assets and gained control of the Percy Jackson intellectual property.
At the moment, everyone is thrilled about that, especially Riordan, because the streaming reboot of this story is a blockbuster.
Percy Jackson is dominating on streaming. Let’s discuss the details.
Percy Jackson and the Strong Nielsen Showing
We’ve known for a while that Percy Jackson had performed extraordinarily well on Disney+.
One of the oddities of Nielsen’s current system is that we must wait a month for the reporting.
So, while we’re all watching NFL playoff football, the Nielsen ratings in question cover pre-Christmas Week, December 18th through December 24th.
During this timeframe, Percy Jackson & the Olympians claimed 572 million viewer minutes.
Those of you who have been reading this article for a while instantly recognize those as terrific numbers.
Percy Jackson has gained roughly the same number of viewers as a Star Wars or Marvel series.
At 572 million, it’s also in line with other breakout hits like Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building and The Bear.
In fact, the new Percy Jackson series bested Loki season two’s first week on streaming.
That show managed 446 million minutes. As a reminder, Loki finished as one of the most watched streaming shows in 2023.
So, Percy Jackson & the Olympians is already in rarefied air. And that’s not even the best part.
Disney+ had only aired two episodes of the series at this point.
For this reason, we can safely expect the show to continue to appear on the Nielsen charts for a while.
In fact, Percy Jackson still has two more episodes yet to air from its eight-episode season.
We’ll be talking about this one for the next couple of months.
The Holiday Spirit Matters
While Disney’s streaming services struggled a bit last time, they staged a comeback during pre-Christmas Week.
Disney owes most of its success to the holiday spirit, as three of its strongest performers this week were Christmas titles.
Elf on Hulu surged from 435 million minutes to 862 million minutes (!), effectively doubling its viewer titles.
By my estimate, Elf managed about 9.5 million viewings during the week before Christmas.
I can’t help but wonder how much of that came from super-fans who simply watched the show on a loop.
Similarly, Home Alone increased its viewership from 455 million to 836 million.
So, that’s about 8.3 million viewings of Kevin beating up hapless thieves.
Disney even had a third holiday classic make the list, as National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation returned to the charts.
During the week before Christmas, it managed 649 million minutes. That’s about seven million total viewings.
While I’m admittedly using some sloppy math here, that’s about 25 million rewatches of these three holiday classics.
People were definitely embracing the holiday spirit in the days leading up to Christmas!
Don’t Forget Bluey!
Finally, we have another title from a Disney streaming service on the list.
If you’ve been paying attention, you can surely guess which one.
Yes, Bluey has once again earned a spot on the Nielsen charts. In fact, it increased viewership during the holiday season.
During Pre-Christmas Week, Bluey claimed 925 million viewer minutes. That’s a 13 percent increase from last week.
Bluey is currently putting together a Cal Ripken-like streak on streaming.
The series has placed on the Nielsen charts every week I’ve posted this and often finished in the top overall on streaming.
During Pre-Christmas Week, Bluey was “only” the sixth most popular show on streaming, although that’s more of a credit to the competition.
Five different programs managed 950+ million viewer minutes, which shows just how much we all stream programs during the holidays.
In case you’re wondering, the most popular programs for the week were:
- Young Sheldon (1.408 billion viewer minutes)
- Reacher (1.18 billion viewer minutes)
- The Crown (1.14 billion viewer minutes)
- Leave the World Behind (983 million viewer minutes)
- Rebel Moon: Part 1 (966 million viewer minutes)
- Bluey (925 million viewer minutes)
- Grey’s Anatomy (908 million viewer minutes)
- Elf (862 million viewer minutes)
- Home Alone (836 million viewer minutes)
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie (730 million viewer minutes)
So, Disney streaming programs claimed 30 percent of the top ten, which is a significant improvement from last week.
Now, the question becomes how many people were still watching Elf, Home Alone, and Christmas Vacation after December 25th.
I’d expect one more week for Elf and Home Alone to appear, but Percy Jackson and Bluey should largely carry Disney+ for the next six weeks.
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