After more than a decade spent in various levels of development hell, a Halo television series is finally here. The show made its debut on Paramount+ last Thursday, and despite some mixed reviews, it seems to have gotten off to a decent start. That likely has the brass at Paramount+ pretty excited, considering that the streaming platform is reportedly investing upwards of $10 million per episode in the fledgling series and has given it an early renewal for season 2.
Per Deadline, Paramount+ has revealed that Halo set a new record for the most-watched series premiere ever on the platform, although we don’t have any specific numbers as of yet. But Paramount+ stated that it surpassed the previous record for first day viewership set by the Yellowstone spinoff 1883, and considering the massive fanbase Yellowstone has, that bodes well for Halo.
We should have a better idea of how things stand soon, once Nielson releases its tabulation of the viewership numbers for the week of Halo’s premiere. As things stand, Paramount+ has never had a show break into the top 10 on a Nielson count. Could Halo be the first?
Dune takes home six Oscars
Halo isn’t the only sci-fi property earning accolades in the past week. The Oscars aired over the weekend, and Denis Villeneuve’s visionary adaptation of Dune snagged quite a few golden statues.
Dune was nominated in a total of 10 categories and won for six of them: best cinematography, editing, score, visual effects, production design and sound. While it lost out on Best Picture to CODA, it’s still pretty awesome that a big budget effects-driven science fiction movie like Dune managed to get some mainstream attention from the Academy.
Dune is currently available to stream on HBO Max, so you can see it in all its Oscar-winning glory once again. New episodes of Halo premiere every Thursday on Paramount+.
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