Marvel's long-held goodwill with fans was seemingly strained beyond normal means with Secret Invasion, which earned wildly dour Rotten Tomatoes scores and delivered a finale that seemed to spur as many jokes as genuinely impressed reactions. Thankfully, the studio is primed to prune that meh-ness from the timeline by way of Loki Season 2, which will finally soon be available to stream with a Disney+ subscription. Just how excited are MCU-leaning audiences? Enough so that the first full-length look at Tom Hiddleston’s return as the God of Mischief managed to break a record for the streaming service.
Loki’s initial Season 2 trailer hit the internet on Monday, July 31, and instantly became a talking point among TV fans who don’t have all that much to look forward to on the horizon, thanks to the WGA writer strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike. The fervor was such that the promo quickly became the biggest online trailer release ever for Disney+ across a variety of platforms with more than 80 million views to date, according to Deadline.
That’s a mighty impressive number, even for industry giants like Disney and Marvel. 80 million people all watching the same ad is akin to Super Bowl numbers, and you can bet both companies would love to see that kind of viewership whenever the series returns for its premiere this fall. I imagine the powers that be might even go widely public with those specific details if it happened, despite being fairly non-transparent about ratings otherwise.
I can absolutely see why this trailer is at the top of the clicks for Disney+, and not just for a single reason. For one, Loki remains the most-watched Marvel series on the streaming service, and it took the COVID-struck world by storm in 2021 as both a critically lauded and a fan-beloved chapter in the MCU’s ever-expanding chronology. Not just because of Tom Hiddleston’s emotionally grounded take on the trickster, but for the entire cast — including Owen Wilson, Wunmi Mosaku, Sophia Di Martino, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tara Strong and Jonathan Majors, among others — the smart writing, and the pretty stellar production design. (I’ll never forget the episode with The Void and all its magnificent references.)
To follow up on that, Loki Season 2 looks just as madcap and bonkers as the first, and the trailer brings that manic energy to a boil as the titular character unintentionally slips from one timeline to the next. Honestly, all I needed was that shot of Miss Minutes going berserk and I would have been sold, so for that to have been surrounded by other forms of excellence is icing on a complicated cake.
Get 'em, Miss Minutes! Or wait, who am I supposed to be going for in this show again? I'm pretty sure I'm sticking with Ke Huy Quan's new character O.B. no matter what.
Loki will arrive on Disney+ on Friday, October 6, and I can’t wait to see how many people who watched the trailer end up tuning in for the episode itself. While waiting to see how all the time-jumping shenanigans come together, check out all the upcoming Marvel movies and upcoming MCU TV shows that will be arriving after Tom Hiddleston’s return to the small screen.
