Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness continues to make money at the box office, but the film is also now available to watch at home on Disney+. The latest film in Phase Four of the MCU was added to the streamer on June 22, and enjoyed a very successful first five days on the platform. According to streaming viewership tracker Samba TV, Multiverse of Madness was watched by 2.1 million U.S. households in its first five days on Disney+. The Doctor Strange sequel saw similar premiere numbers to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and ended up outperforming the first five streaming days of Eternals. The Chloe Zhao epic was watched by 2 million households when it was added to Disney+ in January, a number that Multiverse of Madness outpaced by 5%.
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The Multiverse of Madness premiere number is even more impressive when considering the film was added to Disney+ the same day as the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale. Samba TV says the five-day viewership number for the sixth and final episode of Kenobi was 1.8 million households, meaning there likely was a lot of overlap between viewers of the Star Wars series and Multiverse of Madness. The Kenobi finale ended up outperforming the finale of its Star Wars predecessor The Book of Boba Fett by 20%, but Obi-Wan didn’t have quite enough to unseat Doctor Strange as the most-watched hero from June 22-27.
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Multiverse of Madness is Still Making Money Despite Being on Disney+
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Even though Multiverse of Madness can now be watched at home, audiences are still going out to the theater to experience the mind-bending adventure on the big screen. This past weekend was the film’s eighth in release, and it was still able to pull in $1.7 million domestically. That total wasn’t enough to keep Multiverse of Madness in the weekend top five, but it’s much more than what both Shang-Chi and Eternals made after they were added to Disney+. Shang-Chi premiered on the streamer Nov. 12, 2021, and ended up earning just $225K at the box office that weekend. For Eternals, it made just $21K the weekend after it went to Disney+, but both of those films were much deeper into their theatrical runs than Multiverse of Madness.
It’s interesting that Disney decided to add Multiverse of Madness to its streamer when it did, as it waited until the 11th release week of both Shang-Chi and Eternals before making those films available on Disney+. The House of Mouse may have wanted to capitalize on the success of the Sam Raimi film as quickly as possible as opposed to waiting until the middle of July when Thor: Love and Thunder and the Ms. Marvel finale will be in the spotlight.
Looking ahead, if Love and Thunder is put on Disney+ ahead of its eighth weekend of release, that would mean a possible streaming premiere of Aug. 24, the same day as the second episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. That would also be the week before the series premiere of Andor, so Disney may want to put the fourth Thor film up on streaming before doubling back up with Marvel and Star Wars content throughout September. With just three episodes left of Ms. Marvel, the back half of July will be the calm before the content storm returns this fall.
