HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ premiered on 21st August in the US on HBO Max and early morning on 22nd August in India on the Disney+ Hotstar OTT platform. Such was the craze for the show amongst US-based streaming audiences that there were reports of streaming crashes on HBO Max particularly for those who viewed it through Amazon Fire TV device. So, it was already anticipated that ‘House of the Dragon’ was all set to create some mind-boggling viewing figures after its premiere.
As per the latest viewing stats by Warner Bros. Discovery, the ‘House of the Dragon’ opening episode titled ‘The Heirs of the Dragon’ has pulled in around a massive 9.9 million viewers in the US across linear television broadcast and on the HBO Max OTT platform.
Moreover, as per HBO, ‘House of the Dragon’ has become the show with the highest ever premiere household views in the history of HBO linear channel along with its streaming platforms HBO Max, and before that, the now defunct HBO Now and HBO Go.
For some perspective, if we compare the ‘House of the Dragon’ premiere viewership with the ‘Game of Thrones’ Season-1 premiere stats, the latter had pulled in a significantly lesser but still impressive 4.2 million viewers back in the year 2011. However, the ‘Game of Thrones’ Season-8 premiere had attracted a whopping 17.9 million views in 2019 – a record that’s yet to be surpassed. Although the curiosity quotient around the ‘Game of Thrones’ finale was a result of the massive loyal fan base built up through the show’s first seven seasons over a period of eight years.
‘House of the Dragon’ is based on George R. R. Martin’s 2018 fantasy novel ‘Fire & Blood’ and the goings-on takes place around two centuries before the events of ‘Game of Thrones’ and revolves around the beginning of the end of House Targaryen. The show has, so far, received a critics score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and an IMDb rating of 9.1/10.