‘Descendants’ Rises….But Only Slightly
Descendants: The Rise of Red sustained its momentum after a stellar first week on streaming.
Alas, the latest Descendants film may have already peaked on the charts.
Photo: Disney
Let’s examine the streaming performance of the fourth Descendants film as well as all of Disney’s other streaming hits.
The Rise of Red Starts Strong
Photo: Also D23
Last week, I discussed the wildly positive news regarding the triumphant return of Descendants.
Once a crown jewel of the Disney teeny bopper empire, Descendants vanished seemingly overnight due to tragedy.
Photo: Disney
One of the stars of the first three films, Cameron Boyce, died tragically of epilepsy. He was just 20 years old.
Disney fans mourned him to the degree that his death cast a pall over the potential for future Descendants projects.
Photo: Disney Channel
Any such project would have been viewed in extremely poor taste. So, Disney rightfully mothballed Descendants.
In the interim, any possibility of a follow-up vanished due to the soaring popularity of some of the film’s stars.
Disney
Dove Cameron’s singing career took off thanks to her single, “Boyfriend,” which was a global sensation.
Meanwhile, Sofia Carson joined living legend Diane Warren to perform “Tell It Like a Woman” at last year’s Academy Awards.
(Disney Channel/David Bukach) CAMERON BOYCE, SOFIA CARSON, DOVE CAMERON, BOOBOO STEWART
Frankly, both women have grown too big for the small-scale budgets of Disney Channel projects like Descendants.
So, after waiting a respectful amount of time, Disney has rebooted the project with two new characters leading the cast.
Photo: Disney
The early results were glowing, with Descendants: The Rise of Red breaking a streaming record.
Currently, the film stands as the most viewed Disney Channel original movie ever on streaming in its first 72 hours.
Photo: People
Nielsen’s numbers suggested 4.1 million viewers, while other data indicated an exceptional 6.7 million.
To put that number in perspective, 6.7 million is roughly the equivalent of a box office opening weekend of $72.2 million.
Disney+
So, yeah, we’re talking about a massive start to the reboot of Descendants.
The Rise of Red Rises…Slightly
Photo: Disney+
Sadly, the momentum wasn’t sustainable in week two, and I’m stretching the definition of a week just to say that.
For the week of July 15th through July 21st, 2024, The Rise of Red earned another 424 million viewer minutes.
Photo: Disney+
That’s an increase of 38 million from last week, but here’s the thing. Last “week” was really just two and a half days.
That’s the arbitrary moment when the charts ended for The Rise of Red’s first week.
Photo: Disney
So, we’re really discussing most of its first week and a small part of its second.
Under that scrutiny, we notice the pattern that after the opening rush from Descendants fans, the movie kinda fell by the wayside.
Photographer: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images
I think that’s to be expected because the reviews are, well, hostile.
Currently, The Rise of Red holds an IMDb score of 4.6 out of 10.
Photo: The New York Post
On Rotten Tomatoes, few critics even bothered, with only reviews, half of them positive.
Sadly, the Audience Score paints a different picture, with an atrocious score of 45 percent.
The Walt Disney Company
Thus, last week’s story of an emerging hit has fallen by the wayside. Now, we’re looking at a briefly popular dud.
Still, Disney can examine the early data and tell that there’s still demand for Descendants…especially if they make a good movie.
Disney’s Other Streaming Hits
Photo: Disney
For the umpteenth consecutive week, Bluey earned more than one billion viewer minutes.
This time, the Australian cartoon managed 1.035 million viewer minutes.
Photo: Disney
Now that we’re more than halfway through the year, I’ll reiterate that Bluey remains the most popular streaming program in 2024.
The only thing that’s even in the same stratosphere is Netflix’s Your Honor, which has fallen off dramatically in recent weeks.
Photo: Disney
While something massive could still enter the charts and prove a threat, the betting money’s on Bluey winning the 2024 streaming charts.
Interestingly, another Disney-streamed property nearly beat Bluey this week, though.
FOX
Family Guy slotted right behind it with 989 million viewer minutes, which is the best performance I can ever recall for it.
Family Guy actually surpassed Grey’s Anatomy, the long-running medical drama, which managed 965 million minutes.
IMDB
Hulu’s other popular shows this week were Bob’s Burgers with 818 million minutes and Criminal Minds with 723 million.
Disney on the Originals Chart
Photo: The Walt Disney Company
On the Originals chart, The Bear sustained its popularity with another 567 million minutes.
As an aside, Eddie Vedder’s cover of “Save It for Later” has lived in my head since season three debuted.
Technically, Hulu’s most popular Original series is Love Island, which is only Disney’s biggest streaming title this week.
Families Streaming Disney+
The reality show earned 1.051 billion viewer minutes. However, that’s a shared title with Netflix and Peacock.
And let’s be honest. The overwhelming majority of those views come from Netflix. Thus, it’s not really Disney’s biggest hit.
Photo: Lucasfilm
Disney did sneak one more title into Originals. It’s the formerly vanished The Acolyte, which managed 335 million viewer minutes.
This chart does cover The Acolyte’s season (and likely series) finale. So, there was a modest uptick in support toward the end.
(L-R): Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett) and Tasi Lowa (Thara Schöön) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Sadly, it’s still nowhere near what Disney had envisioned in greenlighting the show. This one’s sadly a dud.
By the way, Descendants was the only Disney+/Hulu entry on the Movies chart this week.
Disney
For once, Moana didn’t make an appearance! Also, Inside Out didn’t earn enough this week, leaving the franchise without a chart presence.
That will change in a few weeks when Inside Out 2 debuts on Disney+ and instantly becomes the number one film.
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