Hawkeye premiere got lowest ratings of any Disney Plus Marvel series

Hawkeye premiered to the lowest ratings of any Marvel Studios series on Disney Plus, despite being almost universally well-received.

While MCU fans were seemingly excited about the Hawkeye series coming to Disney Plus, it appears that the praise didn't actually translate into high ratings. 

The Hawkeye series got the lowest ratings for its two-episode premiere of any Marvel Studios series that has premiered on the streaming service.

Hawkeye stars Jeremy Renner as the titular character. He is paired with Hailee Steinfeld, who plays the role of Kate Bishop. The pair is tasked with taking on the bad guys during Clint Barton's Christmastime trek to New York City.

While the combination of Renner and Steinfeld was considered a powerful pairing by many in the industry, it has so far failed to generate eyeballs on Hawkeye. According to Deadline, the first episode of the new series had 1.5 million viewers over the Wednesday to Sunday period. 

That number puts it squarely behind the last Marvel Studios series to hit Disney Plus, which is Loki. Using the Samba TV rating system that measures three million US households and what they watch on streaming over a five-minute increment, Loki grabbed 2.5 million viewers for its debut. 

That means Hawkeye saw a 40 percent drop in comparison. Perhaps even worse news for the new series is that it lost about 200,000 viewers from the first episode to the second. 

While Loki might be the gold standard for ratings when it comes to MCU programmes on Disney Plus, Hawkeye also trailed several other Marvel Studios series that didn't do quite as well with their debuts. 

Renner and Steinfeld's show's debut was also behind Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which nabbed 1.8 million viewers, and WandaVision, which was previously the lowest debut with 1.6 million.