Six episodes into its second season and Daredevil: Born Again has not appeared once on Nielsen’s weekly Top 10 original streaming chart. The premiere week came in below 449 million minutes watched, the number that would have placed it tenth on the list. The show is not even clearing the floor.
This is not a one-time stumble. Every episode of Season 1 missed the same chart. That made Born Again the first live-action MCU series ever to fail Nielsen’s Top 10 across an entire season, a record previously held only by animated Marvel titles. Season 2 is now on track to make it two for two.
For context, The Acolyte debuted with 488 million minutes watched in its first two weeks before collapsing and getting cancelled. Daredevil: Born Again is starting below where The Acolyte ended. The show that was supposed to restore Marvel’s credibility on streaming cannot outperform a Star Wars series that became a symbol of franchise failure.
Disney positioned Born Again as their flagship Marvel property. They retooled the entire first season to reconnect it to the original Netflix run after that production collapsed in reshoots and showrunner changes. Then they greenlit Season 2 before Season 1 finished airing. Season 3 is already filming with Mike Colter reportedly returning as Luke Cage and Finn Jones back as Iron Fist.
Marvel is expanding a show that general audiences are not watching. Social media noise about the series has not translated into viewership. As one industry tracker noted, the minimum bar to chart tenth on Nielsen right now is roughly 239 million minutes per week, a threshold the show has not cleared in fifteen consecutive episodes.
The original Netflix Daredevil built its audience on grounded storytelling and a tone that treated its characters as people rather than delivery vehicles for franchise continuity. Born Again arrived carrying three seasons of continuity baggage and a creative direction that reviewers have described as leaning into political allegory over character. The viewers who loved the Netflix show have not shown up in numbers. The general audience that might have discovered it fresh has not either.
Is this a show problem, a Disney+ problem, or confirmation that the MCU’s streaming era has permanently lost its audience?
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The show has so far been nothing but girlbosses and Antifa riots, while Daredevil and Kingpin are in the background.
It’s an originality problem. There aren’t any new creative ideas anymore in the AAA market, which is why they’re hemorrhaging. They’ve butchered beloved IPs so much that even if they came out with a great show for it, the ceiling for its success has lowered to just above head-height. We’ve been fed nothing but Marvel and Star Wars for nearly 25 years.