In 2025, the first Star Wars streaming show, The Mandalorian, crossed one billion hours streamed, and May 4, Star Wars Day, was the busiest day of the year on Disney+. Those stats would lead you to believe that Star Wars is dominating streaming and, therefore, the world. But not so fast.
This week, Disney released a slew of self-congratulatory stats about its streaming services. Among the standouts are the two Star Wars-related ones mentioned above. But, also, Bluey was the most-watched series of the year with 26.5 million rewatches. Moana 2 was the biggest movie of the year, with over 80 million rewatches, and Alien: Earth was FX’s biggest premiere on streaming, racking up over 100 million hours of viewing total.
But let’s focus on Star Wars because, at least for the past six years, Star Wars has exclusively been a streaming franchise.
The Mandalorian was one of several big-name shows or movies that reached a billion hours streamed this year (The Golden Girls, Encanto, Malcolm in the Middle, Law and Order: SVU, Family Guy, and Futurama are just a few of the others). However, it’s the only Star Wars show on there. Is that because it has the most episodes and has been around the longest? Of course. But, you’d think a franchise as big as Star Wars would have a little more representation. They’ve made Boba Fett shows. They’ve made Obi-Wan Kenobi shows. But nothing touches the original.
You’d especially think there would be more billion-hour Star Wars streamers because Star Wars Day, May 4, was Disney+’s biggest streaming day of the year. Disney didn’t release any specifics of what, exactly, was streamed on that day (it did use Andor as the art, though), but it’s safe to assume that a lot of it was Star Wars. Surely that means Star Wars shows, movies, animation, everything, all wrapped into one. Which is probably a big reason why, a few years ago, Disney announced its next Star Wars movie is based on that content: The Mandalorian and Grogu.
So, let’s look at The Mandalorian and Grogu. The film opens on May 22, 2026, and released its first trailer back in September. Since then, the official Star Wars YouTube version of the trailer has 10 million views. Which sounds impressive until you look at something more recent, like last week’s Supergirl trailer. That’s only been out a week and has over 20 million views.
Is DC two times as popular as Star Wars? Obviously not. But fans might be two times as excited to see a new, big-screen DC adventure than a movie based on a TV show they’ve already watched for, literally, a billion hours.
Basically, what we’re saying is, Star Wars needs a boost, even if some of its stats are impressive. Will that be The Mandalorian and Grogu? Will we have to wait for 2027 and a new Star Wars movie, as well as the original film’s re-release? We don’t know. But maybe as fans wait for new Star Wars content, they’ll circle back to things they’ve missed. Things that, we think, are actually pretty great. Shows like The Acolyte, Skeleton Crew, or Star Wars Visions.
What are your thoughts on the streaming success of Star Wars? Let us know below.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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