Skeleton Crew Streaming Ratings - It Does Not Look Good

While we still have to wait a while for Nielsen to include Skeleton Crew on their streaming charts newcomer Luminate (the company behind the US billboard charts) have updated their streaming charts with data from last week only yesterday, which means episode 3 of Skeleton Crew is included in the dataset.

And it does not look good for the latest Star Wars series. Click through for more!

Jude Law learns about the viewership numbers for Skeleton Crew

Just like last week, Skeleton Crew failed to even make it into the Luminate top 10 streaming charts for original shows. This in week 2, with episode 3 added.

And the #10 entry only has 288.9 million minutes streamed. Skeleton Crew could not even beat that.

This is especially bad since the – until now – least watched live action Star Wars series, The Acolyte, had 380.5 million minutes on the Luminate streaming charts in week 2 with a comparable overall runtime and it was the #6 show overall in its second week. Skeleton Crew at least has almost 100 million minutes less than that. It all went downhill from there quickly of course for The Acolyte, but that Skeleton Crew saw no week 2 boost like The Acolyte did is really bad news for the show and Lucasfilm of course.

Earlier this week Forbes posted the budget for the show, and it’s $136 million. Which is “cheaper” than The Acolyte, but actually more expensive than The Mandalorian and also more expensive than Obi-Wan Kenobi. And while this time you can at least kind of see the budget the question must be asked if a show with limited appeal (did Lucasfilm really think a Star Wars series with children as main characters would be hugely successful given the demographics of the fans watching the shows?) ever deserved such a high budget. And in return for all this investment viewership must be at an alltime low for a Star Wars live action series on Disney+. There simply is no return on investment anymore for anything Lucasfilm is doing.

This is even more tragic given how the show has been generally well received by the people watching it. Most people agree it’s fun and entertaining and many consider it the best show right behind Andor and The Mandalorian seasons 1 and 2. But alas, even word of mouth does not seem to impact ratings. Of course it’s always possible that word of mouth may finally catch on and that Skeleton Crew’s ratings can improve in the following weeks. We also have to wait for Nielsen and their charts of course, but as far as The Acolyte is concerned both Luminate and Nielsen were pretty much in agreement and the numbers matched pretty closely.

If Nielsen confirms Luminate’s data it would be catastrophic for Lucasfilm and their thoroughly rotten 2024 would end on a real downer.

Somewhat related to this is also the fact that the Indiana Jones video game “The Great Circle” seems to be yet another certified flop for a game with a Lucasfilm license. And even though reviews for the game are mostly positive, the player numbers on Steam are shocklingly low, given how this is a AAA game. It’s about 11k players today, on a weekend, and it’s even the first full weekend after general release (the game had early access).

Lucasfilm is already a one trick pony. After trashing Willow and turning an Indiana Jones movie into one of the biggest box office flops of all time they only have Star Wars. And that seems to be on a unstoppable downward trajectory at the moment. Merchandise no longer sells, to the point Lucasfilm’s / Disney’s biggest partner in the toy industry, Hasbro, called out Star Wars in their last earnings call and told everyone how it is a major contributor to the bad sales figures for their partner brands. The shows, with ballooning budgets, fail on Disney+. Andor and Visions season 3 in 2025 won’t hardly buck this trend either. So everything seems to hinge on The Mandalorian movie now. Can it save Star Wars from the abyss like it did back in 2019 when season 1 became a surprise hit with Baby Yoda? Or will it dig Lucasfilm’s and Star Wars’ grave?

When even something that is generally well received by almost everyone no longer even makes a dent on the charts… the question is what Lucasfilm can even do anymore. At this point I feel the only course of action would be to remove Kathleen Kennedy at the earliest opportunity and to put someone in her place most fans like and trust.

You could also blame the marketing for Skeleton Crew maybe. A show about kids in space would always be a tough sell to the mostly adult fan community, given the history of child characters in Star Wars. Banking so heavily on things like the Goonies in the marketing is also an odd choice, when in reality Skeleton Crew borrows even more from classics like Treasure Island with its strong pirate theme. But this is the thing: while George Lucas also borrowed from various shows or movies for his Star Wars, it never seemed like a calculated move. And maybe people feel Skeleton Crew is just that: a stratagem, mere content, trying to lure people in with nostalgia.

Whatever the reasons are, fact is Skeleton Crew seems to be a ratings disaster for Lucasfilm and could very well end up being the least watched Marvel and Star Wars series on Disney+ ever (ignoring Echo here which was dumped on Disney+ all at once and had truly abysmal numbers), with even worse numbers than Ms. Marvel.

But what is really worrying for Disney is that the second biggest streaming service in the US and worldwide, based on subscriber numbers, is vastly underrepresented on the streaming charts. Luminate has no charts for licensed content (so no Bluey, but that is not even a Disney IP), only original shows and movies, but Disney+ has exactly “0” entries here, no shows, no movies by Disney make the charts, yet again. None of Disney’s original content is in demand.

Whereas a struggling newcomer, Paramount+, with analysts only earlier this year recommending that Paramount ends their streaming effort, with a much, much lower number of subscribers has four entries on the charts for original shows, the #1, #4, #6 and 8# entry, and the #8 entry is even just an old season of the #4 show, Lioness. And a drama series with Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larter is the #1 streaming show by Paramount. So it’s not even some flashy superhero or Scifi show. Bob Iger should seriously reconsider the general content strategy Disney is pursuing. Given the number of subscribers the lack of Disney+ content on the charts is shocking.

And when even tentpole franchises like Star Wars now fail to even chart altogether – despite a mostly positive reception by the people still watching it all – all alarm bells should ring. Lucasfilm cannot continue like this. And maybe The Acolyte damaged Star Wars much more than some would like to believe. Leslye Headland tried to single handedly destroy the Jedi, to deconstruct Star Wars, to make it all about evil. Maybe she succeeded, only not in ways she or Kathleen Kennedy wanted.

And before anyone says anything: with the kind of budgets Star Wars and other things made by Disney is receiving anything but a top 10 charts position is a disaster. You do not spend that much money on something only for it to be in the “also ran” category. This would be less of a problem if these things cost $40 or $50 million maybe. But it can hardly be Lucasfilm’s nor Disney’s ambition to be anything but a top player given how many subscribers Disney+ has. Yet they are not.

Lucasfilm is also in dire need of a positive PR push. And as mentioned, the only thing I can think of is a swift removal of Kathleen Kennedy and to replace her with someone fans support. She has now overseen three major flops in a row. Indiana Jones in 2023, The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew in 2024 and lost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars in the past two years. And even licensed games have flopped. Both Outlaws and now Indiana Jones are commercial disappointments. Well, flops really. The studio and its IPs need a turnaround. Soon.

The Luminate Streaming Charts

• Review: Skeleton Crew - Very Interesting, As An Astrogation Problem (S01E03)
• Skeleton Crew Does Not Reach The Top 10 Streaming Charts
• Review: Skeleton Crew - This Could Be A Real Adventure / Way, Way Out Past The Barrier (S01E01 & E02)
• The Rey Movie Has Been Removed From The Release Schedule
• Andor Season 2 Premieres On Disney+ On April 22nd 2025
• Disclosure Policy