The Punisher couldn’t crack Nielsen, and he is far from alone.
As we continue tracking Marvel’s streaming ratings, The Punisher: One Last Kill starring Jon Bernthal failed to make Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming originals chart for the week of May 11-May 17, 2026, the special’s debut window on Disney+.
It is the latest miss in what has become a steady pattern for Marvel on Disney+, following Daredevil: Born Again going 0-for-17 on Nielsen across two full seasons.
The Punisher Misses Nielsen In Its Debut Week
The Punisher: One Last Kill premiered May 12 on Disney+, placing it squarely inside Nielsen’s May 11-17 measurement window. For a special like this, that should have been its best shot at charting, with first-week curiosity at its peak.
It did not make the cut.
Nielsen’s originals chart for the week was topped by Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart with 1.348 billion minutes watched, followed by Prime Video’s The Boys with 1.012 billion minutes. At the bottom of the Top 10 was Apple TV’s Your Friends & Neighbors with 339 million minutes.
That means The Punisher: One Last Kill came in below 339 million minutes for its debut week, based on Nielsen’s public Top 10 originals list.
And that undercuts the obvious excuse. Yes, One Last Kill was a special, not a full season, but the week’s #1 title, The Roast of Kevin Hart, was also a one-episode special. The format was not the ceiling.
A single comedy special pulled more than a billion minutes the same week a fan-favorite Marvel character couldn’t clear last place.
The Disney+ comparison is even more telling. The platform charts shows on Nielsen all the time — Bluey is a near-permanent fixture in the Top 10 — and Marvel’s own earlier Disney+ series, from WandaVision to Loki, regularly landed there, too.
This is not a case of Disney+ lacking the reach to chart. It is a case of this corner of Marvel no longer connecting with the broad audience the way it once did.
Marvel’s Disney+ Ratings Slide Keeps Getting Worse
The Punisher miss is not an outlier. It is another sign of a slide that has stretched across Marvel’s Disney+ slate.
In the early Disney+ years, Marvel’s shows were genuine streaming draws. WandaVision and Loki were consistent Nielsen Top 10 performers, with Loki standing as one of the strongest streaming originals of its era.
The drop-off since has been steep. As the MCU moved into Phase 5, the numbers fell sharply — She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, Echo, and Agatha All Along all landed well below the franchise’s earlier highs.
And Daredevil: Born Again, despite heavy fan conversation, never charted on Nielsen across either of its two seasons, a remarkable result for a marquee Marvel title.
Now The Punisher joins the list.
The pattern is no longer about one struggling show. It is about how much of Marvel’s Disney+ output has stopped showing up where the broader audience is measured.
Disney Already Warned Marvel Had A Volume Problem
Disney itself flagged the problem years ago.
Back in July 2023, CEO Bob Iger told CNBC the company would pull back on Marvel and Star Wars content as part of a broader cost-cutting push, summing up the new approach as spending less and making less. The pullback was part of $5.5 billion in planned cuts, including $3 billion from non-sports content.
Iger pointed directly at the flood of Marvel TV shows as the issue, saying the rapid expansion had “diluted focus and attention” for the brand.
In other words, Disney’s own leadership concluded it had made too much Marvel content, too fast. I would argue that there was too much poor content, and the Nielsen numbers in the years since have proved it.
Marvel Is Still Betting On Street-Level Heroes
Despite the ratings, Marvel shows no sign of walking away from the street-level corner.
According to scooper Daniel Richtman, Marvel Studios is reportedly moving ahead with a new Punisher project — a follow-up to One Last Kill — though nothing has been confirmed by Marvel, so treat it as rumor for now.
It echoes the strategy over on Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, which is pivoting to a full Defenders reunion after its own Nielsen shutout.
The throughline is the same: Marvel is leaning into the fans who are still watching rather than chasing the broad numbers, betting that a dedicated street-level audience is enough to justify the lower-budget, fan-focused approach.
Bernthal’s Punisher, at least, is not going anywhere. The actor is set to return as Frank Castle in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, where the character will share the screen with a billion-dollar tentpole.
The irony is hard to miss: Frank works as part of a bigger ensemble, but his solo street-level outing couldn’t find the same broad audience.
A Middling Special Didn’t Help
The muted viewership may not be entirely about the broader Marvel trend.
The Punisher: One Last Kill landed as a middling effort — our review found it just okay, which may have capped word-of-mouth in a crowded streaming week.
Either way, the result fits the pattern. We’ll keep tracking Marvel’s Nielsen numbers as Disney moves forward with more street-level projects and as Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 heads toward its own 2027 test.
