Stranger Things vs. Obi-Wan Kenobi – Picture: Netflix and Disney
We’re one week on from the big battle between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Stranger Things releasing simultaneously on Disney+ and Netflix respectively but who is winning the war so far? Using multiple metrics from different providers, we can give you some idea.
Neither show requires any introduction at this point. Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s biggest shows in its history perhaps only second or third to the likes of Bridgerton or Money Heist.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is based on Disney’s Star Wars intellectual property that brings back some of the most iconic characters from the universe in a new limited series that fills in some of the gaps between Episode 3 and Episode 4.
For context, Netflix is sitting at 222 million worldwide subscribers while Disney+ as of February is sitting at 129.8 million subscribers.
Now an important distinction to make here is that Kenobi and Stranger Things while released on May 27th simultaneously, have very different release schedules over the coming months. Kenobi released its first two episodes on May 27th with new episodes releasing weekly through to June 22nd. Netflix released episodes 1-7 and plans to release the remainder of volume 2 in July 2022.
Official ratings from Netflix and Disney
Let’s begin with what the actual companies behind each show have released thus far.
Per Netflix, Stranger Things season 4 was a record-breaker for Netflix managing to now carry the accolade of being “the biggest premiere weekend ever for an English language TV show on Netflix.”
It pulled in 286.79M hours viewed globally in its first three days on Netflix.
Disney+ isn’t anywhere close to as transparent as Netflix is currently.
Instead, outlets got a press release from Disney on May 31st that stated that the show on Disney+ had the “biggest opening weekend for any Disney+ Original” with their Twitter account adding that the statement is “based on hours streamed in an opening weekend.”
While Disney hasn’t released the exact number of hours, it’s almost certainly significantly less than Netflix. This goes back to the fact that Stranger Things was released with over 7 hours of content compared to Kenobi’s runtime for episodes 1 and 2 which is under 2 hours.
According to FlixPatrol, both respective shows are dominating the top 10s around the globe. As of June 3rd, Kenobi is #1 in all Disney+ countries. Stranger Things remains number 1 in the majority of countries.
SambaTV has Stranger Things Beating Obi-Wan Kenobi
Over its first four days, SambaTV reports that Stranger Things edged out Obi-Wan Kenobi by just shy of 800,000 households with 2.9 million turning into Stranger Things and 2.1 million for Kenobi.
These numbers applied to only the United States.
For comparison on Netflix’s side, SambaTV recorded 3 million watching The Adam Project in the first weekend while Bridgerton season 2 hit 1.6 million in its first four days on Netflix.
On Disney+’s side, Kenobi’s number compares to 1.8 million in the first 5 days for Moon Knight and 2.5 million for Turning Red.
Stranger Things Wins Week 1 on IMDb’s MovieMeter
On the overall IMDb MovieMeter chart (a chart that tracks inbound traffic to respective IMDb pages for shows and movies) Stranger Things places #1 for its first week vs #3 for Obi-Wan Kenobi with Top Gun: Maverick beating Kenobi out for #2.
Kenobi naturally ranks #2 when just looking at the movie meter charts for just TV shows. Netflix dominates the top 5 beyond Stranger Things with Better Call Saul (Netflix has international distribution) ranking #3, Love, Death and Robots ranking fourth and The Lincoln Lawyer rounding out the list at #5.
IMDb MovieMeter TV chart
Google Interest for Stranger Things is nearly double that of Obi-Wan Kenobi
Looking at Google Trends is another good indicator of how well a show is tapping into the zeitgeist.
In which case, Stranger Things is currently winning the race globally with just shy of double the search interest. We’re using the topic of Stranger Things season 4 within Google Trends.
Parrot Analytics suggests Stranger Things is winning now but Obi-Wan Kenobi could win in the long run
Measuring how in-demand a show is around the globe, Parrot Analytics suggests that Stranger Things has been trending above Kenobi for quite some time with over 200x the demand of an average show vs Kenobi’s 80x+.
Parrot Analytics does suggest, however, that although Stranger Things is ahead now, that the weekly episode release for Kenobi could mean that it has the legs long-term. When compared to season 3 of Stranger Things, WandaVision didn’t get off to the biggest of starts but slowly gained momentum week to week while Stranger Things demand dropped off dramatically as time passes.
Of course, Stranger Things season 4 is releasing in a slightly different manner so it’ll be interesting to see whether the over a month gap between volumes 1 and 2 has the same pattern as season 3 did.
TV Time from Whip Media suggests American viewers chose Stranger Things over Obi-Wan
TV Time, a movie and TV show tracking app for consumers compiles a weekly report of the biggest shows and movies and based on the countries they service (US, UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and Brazil) all of them had Stranger Things at the top spot.
As with most TV tracking or apps of this nature, there are some inherent flaws with their data but when used to make up a single piece of an overall puzzle, they can be very complementary.
Finally, ReelGood, a search app for streaming services is one of the only providers we’ve seen that has placed Obi-Wan Kenobi above Stranger Things.
The Top 10 TV shows and movies available on streaming (5/26-6/01), per @reelgoodapp.
1. #TopGun
2. #ObiWan
3. #StrangerThings
4. #TheLostCity
5. #TheLincolnLawyer
6. #BetterCallSaul
7. #SonicMovie2
8. #FantasticBeasts 3
9. #NightSky
10. #ChipnDale— Brandon Katz (@Great_Katzby) June 3, 2022
Have we missed any data source on the fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Stranger Things? Let us know in the comments.