Pixar’s Soul: Christmas debut a massive ratings success for Disney+

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Congratulations are in order for Soul, the Pixar animated feature released on Disney+ on Christmas Day, after making history on Nielsen’s weekly U.S. streaming rankings, by finishing No. 1 for the week of December 21 to 27.

Just how strong was Soul's debut, you ask? According to Nielsen, the emotionally-charged animation clocked 1.669 billion minutes-worth of streaming, defeating The Office, which had 1.435 billion minutes counted before making its Netflix departure for NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Disney's Star Wars spin-off series, The Mandalorian, also made the list, by placing fifth with 1 billion minutes streamed. Meanwhile, George Clooney's The Midnight Sky ranked No. 4 with 1.1 billion minutes viewed.

Pixar's Soul is one of several major studio releases to be pushed onto a streaming service in light of the pandemic. Unlike Disney's Mulan, which cost Disney+ subscribers a lofty $30 to view upon release, Hamilton and Soul were available on Disney+ at no extra cost to subscribers. With the release of Soul, Disney+ saw a major boost to their subscriber totals, a number that now hovers around 86.8 million. This being the case, it's worth mentioning that Nielsen only tracks U.S. streaming data via a TV set, so there's also mobile viewing to consider. In other words, Disney is going to need a lot of Scrooge McDuck-style money bins, y'all.

While TV series typically top Nielsen streaming lists time and again, that trend is bound to change as more studios sell their tentpole releases to streamers. To put things in perspective, Netflix has upward of 70 major releases this year, while HBO Max will have Warner Bros’ entire slate of features hitting the service throughout 2021. There's also a chance that Disney could push some of its 20th Century Fox features to Disney+.

Good grief. It's like the Wild West out there, right now. There's no telling what will happen next or how the game will be changed forever before the pandemic runs its course. Damn you, coronavirus. You ruin everything.