'House of the Dragon' Records Biggest HBO Series Premiere Ever

After months of anticipation, HBO officially aired the first episode of Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon on Sunday night. Despite some technical issues with fans watching through Amazon Fire Stick, the network reports that the series premiere was its biggest of all time, recording 9.986 million viewers across linear airings and HBO Max streams on opening night in the US alone. HBO notes that the Sunday night viewership numbers typically represent 20 to 40 percent of the gross audience, leaving room for bigger totals to come.

For comparison, the Game of Thrones series premiere brought in 4.2 million viewers in 2011 and Euphoria‘s premiere attracted 2.4 million viewers. “It was wonderful to see millions of Game of Thrones fans return with us to Westeros last night, said Casey Bloys, Chief Content Officer of HBO in a statement. “House of the Dragon features an incredibly talented cast and crew who poured their heart and soul into the production, and we’re ecstatic with viewers’ positive response. We look forward to sharing with audiences what else George, Ryan and Miguel have in store for them this season.”

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood novel, House of the Dragon is set 200 years before the events of the original Game of Thrones series and tells the story of the spiraling downfall of the House of Targaryen. Martin co-created the series with Ryan Condal, and Miguel Sapochnik and Condal serve as the showrunners. Ramin Djawadi from Game of Thrones and Westworld returns to score the series. The leading cast members include Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, and Rhys Ifans.

Take a look at the Weeks Ahead Trailer below for a glimpse at what’s to come and look for new episodes to premiere Sundays, 9 p.m. EDT on HBO Max.

In other news, Jerry Bruckheimer teases Nicolas Cage’s return for National Treasure 3.