Today in news that should surprise no one, it’s being reported that views of Netflix’s Daredevil series were way up last month. The A.V. Club reports that, according to Nielson, Daredevil was the eighth-most-watched show on the streaming platform during the week of December 20-26 with almost 195 million minutes watched. Not bad for a show that was cancelled almost four years ago.
The reason for this spike in viewership should be pretty obvious. This was right around the time that Charlie Cox made his debut as Matt Murdock / Daredevil in the MCU during Spider-Man: No Way Home, something Marvel fans had been clamoring to see for years. And Cox wasn’t the only one. The week of Daredevil’s peak viewing numbers coincided with the return of Vincent D’Onofrio as the Kingpin on Hawkeye.
So yeah, of course more people were watching Daredevil then. (I may have been one of them.) Considering these are characters we haven’t seen on screen in years, it makes sense that people might want to brush up on their last adventures before catching them in the MCU. It helps that Daredevil has aged extremely well; D’Onofrio and Cox turned in amazing performances as strong as anything in the MCU proper. It’s great to see Daredevil continue to get the recognition it deserves.
D’Onofrio recently talked a bit about Marvel’s decision to cancel Daredevil and the other Netflix Marvel shows, which he chocks up to the fact that Disney was planning to start its own streaming service at the time. It made sense even if it was a bitter pill for both fans and the creatives on those successful shows to swallow. Why help out your biggest rival if you can get the views for yourself? If anything, these numbers show that Disney was on the money with that reasoning.
Lucifer was the most streamed show in the US in 2021
In other ratings-related news, Nielson also released its list of the most streamed shows of 2021, with Netflix’s Lucifer taking the infernal crown as the most watched show of the year on any streaming platform. The series saw the release of its final season in 2021, and viewers came out to support. Per Deadline, Lucifer saw 18.1 billion minutes watched, cementing it as the undisputed king of streaming for the year.
The runner-up was Squid Game, which racked up 16.4 billion minutes watched over its much shorter nine-episode run. Interestingly, only 15% of Squid Game’s number was composed of U.S. viewers watching the subtitled version of the Korean-language show. The rest viewed an English dub of the series, which I didn’t even realize was a thing?
Of the top 10 streamed shows in 2021, the only one that didn’t air on Netflix was The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, which came in 10th. Ted Lasso on AppleTV+ and WandaVision on Disney+ placed 12th and 14th respectively. Those marked the only real challenges to Netflix’s dominance.
The story is utterly reversed, however, if you look at movies. Of the top 15 original streaming films of the year, 11 were Disney+ releases, with Luca, Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Frozen 2 topping the list and a slew of other kids films and Marvel content throughout. Netflix had Red Notice at number five, Mitchells Vs. The Machines at number nine, and We Can Be Heroes at 14. Amazon’s only original entry on either list was The Tomorrow War, which ranked 12th for movies.
It’s also worth noting that Nielsen doesn’t cover HBO Max.
The streaming wars continue. With House of the Dragon, The Rings of Power, Stranger Things, and more coming this year, who can say what the list will look like for 2022.
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