Season two of the Game Of Thrones prequel spinoff House Of The Dragon is a bonafide hit.
The new episodes of the HBO Max series, which premiered on June 16, have not only received rave reviews but they’ve also beat previous series bests in terms of the official streaming ratings.
House Of The Dragon, created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan Condal for HBO, saw 1.23 billion minutes streamed during its season two premiere week, up from 1.02 billion in season one.
That translates to a leap of 210 million minutes between the highs of season one and two, according to Nielsen data obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
Those new numbers actually catapulted House Of The Dragon to the fourth most-watched series that week, behind Bridgerton (2.47B minutes), Your Honor (1.95B minutes) and The Boys (1.29B minutes).
The series premiere was watched by over 10 million viewers across the linear channels and HBO Max on the first day, which is now tops in the history of HBO.
The show then followed that up by pulling in record-setting numbers with overall viewing during its first season finale.
While streaming for the show is the main driving force behind those soarings viewership numbers, they actually don’t even include linear viewing, which is reflective of people who still watch on HBO.
A prequel to Game Of Thrones (2011-2019), the fantasy drama is the second television series in Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire franchise.
Based on parts of Martin’s book Fire & Blood (2018), the series begins about 100 years after the Seven Kingdoms are united by the Targaryen conquest, nearly 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.
The show portrays the events leading up to the decline of House Targaryen, a devastating war of succession known as the Dance of the Dragons.
The ensemble cast includes the likes of Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel, Milly Alcock, Emily Carey, Graham McTavish, Tom Glynn-Carney and Ewan Mitchell.
Some of the others in the ensemble cast are Olivia Cooke, Matthew Needham, Jefferson Hall, Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Kurt Egyiawan and Kieran Bew, Abubakar Salim, Tom Taylor, Clinton Liberty, Tom Bennett, Ellora Torchia, Freddie Fox, Gayle Rankin and Simon Russell Beale.
House of the Dragon received a straight-to-series order in October 2019, with casting beginning in July 2020, which was followed up by the start of principal photography in April 2021.
Eventually, the series and its 10 episodes premiered on HBO on August 21, 2022.
It only took network executives five days after its debut to decide to greenlight season two of the series.
While the second season is scheduled to wrap up its finale episode on August 4, House Of The Dragon has already been renewed for a third season.
Among its many accolades, House Of The Dragon won Best Television Series – Drama and Emma D’Arcy was nominated for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama at the 80th Golden Globe Awards.
Plus, the series earned nine Emmy Award nominations, ultimately winning for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes.
The original Games Of Thrones had a wildly successful eight season run on HBO, consisting of 73 episodes that went through until May 19, 2019.
The series received 59 Primetime Emmy Awards, the most by a drama series, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2015, 2016, as well as 2018 and 2019.
After attracting a devoted fan base across the world, and garnering high praise from viewers and critics alike, Game Of Thrones is considered to be one of the best television series of all time.
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Source: USA Today
