When Disney+ was first announced it seemed that it was just Disney’s way of making more money of people streaming older content.  It was supposed to be a vault of Disney properties for families to watch at home.  The idea of having original content on the service was for smaller projects the company could put on the service to keep subscribers intrigued and come back to watch.  Originally that what was the plan for The Mandalorian as a small Star Wars project to keep fans subscribed. One year later and almost through the second season of The Mandalorian the original plan is gone and now Disney is all-in on its streaming service.

The Mandalorian’s second season has done something that no other major project has been able to accomplish.  It has combined the storylines from live-action and animated together.  The show has broken down barriers of what was once thought to be impossible.  From the first season of this show the biggest focus was the mystery of The Child and what his name was.  The first season was its own independent Star Wars story that had very little influence from the films or other mediums.  That has all changed with the second season with the story line focusing heavily on characters from The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the films.

Viewers of the show that never watched the animated series are now going back and watching these shows so they can have a better understanding of the character arc.  Of course this means that streaming on Disney Plus has picked up which is exactly what the company wanted. What The Mandalorian has done is make viewers go back and either rewatch shows or watch them for the first time to keep up with the current storyline.

When the mention of Ahsoka Tano first happened on The Mandalorian fans of the animated series were in euphoria while the casual Star Wars fan was assuming that we get a backstory in the episode.  That was not the case and now fans of The Mandalorian are going back to The Clone Wars and Rebels to find out more these characters.

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Reports are coming out now that there has been a significant spike in viewership for The Clone Wars and Rebels animated series with the second season of The Mandalorian premiering each week.  These spikes have happened before with the first season of The Mandalorian and also the final season of The Clone Wars.  What has been amazing is that no other streaming service is able to maintain this type of behavior with the exception of The Office and Friends.

The Mandalorian has created a shared universe between film, animated, and live-action shows that allows the audience to follow at their pace.  With speculation of a possible Luke Skywalker cameo at some point you can expect viewership to increase for the original trilogy as well. Disney Plus cannot keep up with the pace of content that other streaming service like Netflix can right now.  What it is able to do though is create a shared universe among shows that will allow subscribers to follow at their leisure.

An October report from research firm Moffett Nathanson found that daily usage on Disney Plus has declined over the last six months. This was rather surprising with the Covid-19 pandemic keeping most people indoors especially children.  While other streaming services saw an uptick in usage this was the opposite for Disney.  There were some upticks in usage with the additions of Hamilton and Mulan but not enough to keep subscribers using the service routinely.

With this proven formula Disney is now looking to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige to interweave Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the new shows on Disney Plus as well as the upcoming films. The kick off will be when WandaVision will premiere this upcoming January to then link into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Although not confirmed there are other reports that characters from other films like Black Widow could end up in the Hawkeye series.

With Disney CEO Bob Chapek pushing the company’s future into streaming it seems that The Mandalorian formula orchestrated by Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni will play into that future.

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