The Marvel vs. DC tribalism may be more in the eyes of the fans than the creative talent involved in bringing the huge amount of comic book adaptations from both companies to life, and while the Marvel Cinematic Universe is undeniably out of the DCEU’s sight when it comes to box office takings and critical acclaim, the influx of streaming projects has added an interesting new wrinkle to the rivalry.
The MCU is continuing to roll out a succession of episodic shows on Disney Plus, whereas DC are sharing the wealth across multiple platforms. J.J. Abrams has a handful of series in development for HBO Max, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League was a massive win for the platform, but Netflix’s Lucifer and Sweet Tooth have also proved to be monster hits.
In fact, the latest Nielsen streaming ratings for June have crowned Sweet Tooth as the most popular show of the month, drawing in 1.4 billion minutes worth of streams, almost double the 731 million brought in by Loki. Obviously, it’s not a true like-for-like comparison when the fantasy hit executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. dropped all eight episodes on June 4th, with the premiere of Tom Hiddleston’s time traveling adventure rolling out five days later, and only four of the six installments aired by the time we reached July.
Lucifer took second place in the rankings with just over a billion minutes following the heavily-hyped release of Season 5B with Loki in third, so DC actually claimed the top two spots for June, which is very good news indeed for production companies DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television, with the chances of a Sweet Tooth Season 2 looking pretty good right now.