For Amazon Prime, making the comic book series The Boys into a live-action TV show was a big risk that turned out to be a brilliant move in hindsight. The dark, twisted take on superhero tropes, telling the story of a psychotic version of the Justice League steeped in realism with loads of adult content has been reportedly drawing in a bigger audience than the previous standard-bearers of gritty superhero fare: Netflix’s collection of Marvel shows, including Daredevil, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, among others.
With online streaming, there’s no direct way of gauging the viewership of private platforms like Amazon Prime since the companies rarely release that information to the public. However, there are roundabout ways of determining how many people are interested in a particular piece of web content and Parrot Analytics have now released some new data which shows that The Boys has 50 million demand expressions per day in its fifth week of release, while the most popular Marvel Netflix offering, Jessica Jones averaged 20 million expressions per day in the same timeframe.
None of the other Netflix superhero programs could beat Jessica Jones, either, with Luke Cage tallied just under 20 million daily expressions for its first season, and Daredevil and Iron Fist never rising above roughly 15 million daily expressions. This disparity hasn’t gone unnoticed by Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb, and he already has a strategy in place to increase the appeal of the studio’s superhero shows on streaming platforms by tackling new genres within their framework.
Meanwhile, The Boys is basking in its moment in the sun and is now gearing up for the release of its second season. Filming has already begun on the next run, too, with all the major characters set to make their return, as the war between Billy Butcher and Homelander escalates and promises to reach a thrilling climax.
