‘Hamilton’ Drives 79% Spike in Disney+ Downloads

“Hamilton” was supposed to be a box office smash for Disney; instead, the popular play-turned-movie from Lin-Manuel Miranda ended up being a huge boost to Disney+, with the streaming service gaining about 1 million mobile downloads over Fourth of July weekend, according to data shared by Sensor Tower on Monday. Those 1 million downloads, across both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store over the three day weekend, represented a 79% spike from the previous weekend, according to Sensor Tower. Those downloads do not include Disney+ downloads on TV streaming devices like Apple TV and Roku. The “Hamilton” movie featured the broadway juggernaut’s original cast and was directed by Thomas Kail, who also directed the stage production. Originally slated for a 2021 theatrical release, Disney bumped up the movie’s debut to this summer, after most movie theaters were closed down due to the coronavirus pandemic. Disney+ was downloaded 400,000 times on July 4, marking it’s biggest day for the holiday weekend and the app’s biggest day for downloads since April 20. That same day, Disney+ was ranked second overall on Apple’s U.S. App Store — it’s highest position since early January. Disney reported in May that Disney+ had 54.5 million subscribers, making it one of the most popular streaming services less than a year after launching. If you haven’t watched “Hamilton” yet, and you want to know whether Miranda’s hit translates as well to the TV screen, you can read TheWrap’s full review here.