Marvel’s Disney+ shows aren’t just missing Nielsen; the platform is now running almost entirely on its old library instead.
That’s the takeaway from new data that puts hard numbers behind a trend we’ve been tracking for months: the steady ratings decline in Marvel’s original series on Disney+.
According to Luminate’s latest “Retro Revival” report, as covered by Puck’s Julia Alexander, catalog titles — older library content rather than new originals — drove nearly all viewing on Disney+ in the first quarter of 2026.
Disney+ Is The Most Catalog-Dependent Major Streamer
The numbers are stark. The Luminate data shows Disney+ viewing in Q1 2026 was roughly 95% catalog and just 5% originals, the most lopsided split of any major streaming service measured.
For context, “catalog” refers to older library titles — classic shows and films, plus originals that have aged out of their initial release window — as opposed to a platform’s recent originals.
In other words, for nearly every minute watched on Disney+, viewers were streaming older content rather than the new shows the service spends heavily to produce and promote.
Peacock, Hulu, HBO Max, and Paramount+ all skewed catalog heavily as well, sitting in the high 80s to low 90s.
The lone outlier was Netflix, where catalog accounted for only about 60% of viewing, meaning roughly 40% came from recent originals, by far the healthiest figure of the group.
Every streamer leans on its library to some degree; deep catalogs are what keep subscribers watching between big releases. What stands out is the degree of Disney+’s reliance, and what it says about how little its new originals are contributing.
The Report Points Straight At Marvel
Crucially, Puck News‘ analysis ties Disney+’s catalog dependence directly to its struggle to land a breakout original, and it names Marvel.
Puck‘s write-up notes the Disney+ figures are skewed by the platform’s failure to produce a definitive hit over the past year, “with critically acclaimed shows like Daredevil failing to make the Nielsen top 10.”
That lines up exactly with our own reporting: Daredevil: Born Again went 0-for-17 on Nielsen, never charting across either of its two seasons.
And it’s not just Daredevil.
Wonder Man dropped all eight episodes at once on January 27, 2026 — squarely inside this Q1 measurement window — and vanished from Nielsen after a single week, its viewership collapsing almost immediately. Even a full binge release couldn’t sustain it.
And The Punisher: One Last Kill missed Nielsen entirely in its own debut window.
String it together, and the picture is clear: Daredevil and Wonder Man failed to make a dent on Nielsen during the period Luminate measured, while Disney+ leaned on its back catalog to keep viewers engaged. And the trend has only continued, as the Punisher special missed Nielsen in May as well.
The new Marvel content simply isn’t moving the needle the way it once did.
Disney Saw This Coming
None of this is a surprise to Disney itself.
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 effort, 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 culprit, saying the rapid expansion had “diluted focus and attention” for the brand.
The Luminate data, more than two years later, is what that dilution looks like in practice: a wave of original content that isn’t generating the engagement to justify it, leaving the platform’s older library to do the heavy lifting.
Marvel Is Renewing The Shows Anyway
Here’s the twist: despite the numbers, Marvel keeps greenlighting more.
Wonder Man is getting a Season 2 despite its one-week Nielsen disappearance. Daredevil: Born Again is moving ahead with Season 3 — pivoting to a full Defenders reunion — after going 0-for-17. And a follow-up to the Punisher special is reportedly in the works.
The strategy appears to be a deliberate one: lower budgets, fewer releases, and content aimed at the dedicated fans still watching rather than the broad audiences Nielsen measures.
Whether that’s a sustainable plan or simply managing decline is the open question, but for now, Disney+ is a platform whose biggest draw is its past, not its present.
Marvel’s next test arrives in July, when X-Men ’97 Season 2 premieres, and it’s a familiar setup: Season 1 was a critically adored hit with a devoted fanbase, yet none of it charted on Nielsen, the same noise-versus-numbers gap that has defined Daredevil.
We’ll keep tracking the numbers as Marvel’s next wave of Disney+ shows arrives.
