House of the Dragon is HBO’s most successful premiere ever!

After years of waiting, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon is here. The new show is set some 200 years before the original series and chronicles the fall of the Targaryen dynasty from its highest height. You’ll be relieved to know that the season premiere is really impressive. In fact, it’s already smashing records; HBO claims that the premiere is their biggest ever!

To put it into numbers, the House of the Dragon premiere brought in 9.986 million viewers across linear and HBO Max platform. “It was wonderful to see millions of ‘Game of Thrones’ fans return with us to Westeros last night,” HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys said in a statement, per CNBC. House of the Dragon has made a good start on the critical reception side of things, too. At the moment, the show boasts a stellar 9/10 on IMDb and an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. Fresh.

Clearly, the franchise is still very much alive and well. With the glut of super-exciting fantasy projects releasing this summer, it’ll be interesting to see how this holds up against Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series The Rings of Power.

New York City watches House of the Dragon…at the same time.

In the streaming age, it’s pretty rare for millions of people to watch a TV show live at the same time. But with House of the Dragon premiering live for everyone, we all experienced it at once, like the old days.

This is visualized in an incredible viral TiKTok, which shows a bunch of New York City apartments all watching the premiere. Check out the lighting, it’s mesmerizing:

The House of the Dragon premiere is currently streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air Sundays on HBO.

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