Descendants: The Rise of Red—the fourth installment in the mega-hit Descendants franchise—cast a spell on audiences over the weekend, becoming the most viewed DCOM movie premiere from Disney Branded Television ever on Disney+, with 6.7 million views in its first three days streaming. The music-driven film follows Red, the Queen of Hearts’ rebellious daughter, and Chloe, Cinderella’s perfectionist daughter.
It’s yet another milestone for the franchise, as the Descendants: The Rise of Red trailer previously generated 86 million views in 10 days—a record for Disney Branded Television. Disney Channel will present a special encore of the movie Friday, August 9, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Within the last seven days on TikTok, the #Descendants hashtag garnered over 95 million views in the U.S. and over 9 billion views globally. According to WaveMatrix, the new movie was also in the Top 10 most mentioned films and series on TikTok this past weekend.
Featuring songs such as “Red,” “Love Ain’t It,” “What’s My Name,” “Life Is Sweeter,” and “Perfect Revenge“—which have received a combined 25+ million streams on the @DisneyMusicVEVO channel alone—Descendants: The Rise of Red stars Kylie Cantrall as Red, Malia Baker as Chloe, Brandy as Cinderella, Rita Ora as the Queen of Hearts, Dara Reneé as Uliana, Ruby Rose Turner as Bridget/Young Queen of Hearts, Morgan Dudley as Ella/Young Cinderella, Joshua Colley as Young Hook, Peder Lindell as Morgie, Grace Narducci as Fay/Young Fairy Godmother, Jeremy Swift as Principal Merlin, Paolo Montalban as King Charming, and Leonardo Nam as Maddox Hatter. Franchise veterans China Anne McClain and Melanie Paxson reprise their roles as Uma and Fairy Godmother, respectively.
Descendants: The Rise of Red builds on the success of the original trilogy, directed by Disney Legend Kenny Ortega and starring Dove Cameron as Mal, Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, and Booboo Stewart as Jay. Collectively, the first three films have amassed more than 781 million hours of viewing in the U.S. Each ranked as the most-watched TV movie of the year (in 2015, 2017, and 2019) among Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14.
But the franchise’s popularity extends far beyond the movies themselves.
The Descendants: The Rise of Red soundtrack—now available on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music—debuted at No. 1 on iTunes charts following its July 12 release. And the first three Descendants soundtracks—featuring fan-favorite songs such as “Rotten to the Core,” “Ways to Be Wicked,” and “Good to Be Bad“—each topped the Billboard Kids Charts and were certified gold by the RIAA. As of this year, music from the Descendants franchise boasts over 15 billion audio and video streams, as well as 8 billion TikTok views.
On the consumer product side, nearly 7 million dolls and 9 million Descendants books (including four New York Times bestsellers) have been sold. Descendants Halloween costumes were among Disney’s top five licensed costumes for seven years (2015-2021).
The premiere of Descendants: Rise of Red marks latest successful launch for Disney Branded Television. Recent hits include the Disney+ Original series Goosebumps and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, with the latter being of the top streaming premieres of 2023, as well as new episodes of Bluey, the No. 1 most-watched series on streaming last quarter among total viewers in the U.S.*** The recent premiere of the longest-ever Bluey special, “The Sign,” scored 10.4 million views globally in its first seven days of streaming on Disney+, becoming the platform’s most-viewed Disney Jr. title and episode of Bluey ever.****
* A view is defined as total stream time divided by runtime.
** Source: TikTok for Business
***Source: Nielsen NPower, 12/26/2022 – 12/31/2023. Streaming content ratings based on live viewing; Linear viewing based on Live+7 viewing; does not include mobile or desktop viewing
****Source: Nielsen Media Research, U.S. data based on Persons 2+ time spent viewing for streaming series tracked by Nielsen through their streaming content ratings (1/2/24-3/31/24)
