‘Descendants’ Soars with 6.6 Million Viewers, Sequel Hopes are High

Prior to its TV premiere, opinions were split on Descendants, a new Disney Channel movie centered around the titular offspring of iconic Disney villains. No matter how anyone felt about the film’s concept, we were all thinking the same thing at one point: was this going to be another one-off, or could it do well enough to land Disney Channel a new franchise after High School Musical and Teen Beach Movie?

Well, if this news is any indication, we may already have the answer.

Deadline recently reported that Disney Channel may have hit a home run with Descendants, ratings-wise. On premiere night at 8 PM, the film drew a hefty total of 6.6 million viewers (with half of those viewers between the ages of 2 and 11). Its performance was further bolstered by its online streaming numbers, drawing 1.4 million viewers when it debuted early on the Watch Disney Channel app. The combined numbers are said to eclipse the 7.7 million viewers who turned out to watch the first High School Musical back in 2006.

As a result, Descendants now ranks as the #1 cable TV movie of 2015 and the #1 cable TV telecast among both kids and tweens. This also extends to the film’s soundtrack, which is now #1 on iTunes soundtrack chart and #2 on the iTunes album chart. It probably also helped that it was the #1 social non-sports program on Twitter, amassing over 2 million tweets.

Couple all of this with a surprisingly positive reception to the film and it’s only a matter of time before Disney Channel gets serious with the possibility of a sequel (they are already prepping a series of animated shorts that will premiere next month).

Director Kenny Ortega certainly seems open to the possibility of returning. He told The Huffington Post, “I think – were you to ask the cast and the crew – they’d agree that we’d all love to come back and play here again… there are so many characters from Disney animated films that we could draw upon, pull in. There are so many more stories we could tell.”

Booboo Stewart (who plays Jay, Jafar’s son) threw in his support for the film. He told TV Line, “I feel like people are expecting it. They think this is just the first [of several movies].”

Dove Cameron (Maleficent’s daughter, Mal) was the most enthusiastic in expressing her hopes for a sequel, even going so far as to suggest a “whole idea for the next plot.”

Ultimately, whether the film gets a sequel will be Disney Channel’s call, but now the demand is there and the audience has spoken. They want more of the Descendants.

Read Gary’s review of the film here and his review of the soundtrack here.

What do you think? Would you want a Descendants sequel?

Edited by: Hannah Wilkes