House of the Dragon episode 2 tops the series' record-breaking premiere in viewership, tallying over 10 million views across all platforms. House of the Dragon, which premiered August 21 on HBO, follows the Targaryen family 200 years before the events of its predecessor, Game of Thrones. The prequel series sees two Game of Thrones alums, Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, taking over for David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as showrunners and features an ensemble cast led by Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Milly Alcock, Rhys Ifans, Emily Carey, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, and Graham McTavish.
Due to the immense success of Game of Thrones, HBO began pursuing various spinoffs set in George R.R. Martin's land of Westeros, including another prequel series starring Naomi Watts that failed to be picked up after the pilot. The vitriolic response to Game of Thrones season 8 also led to some concern the controversial final season would turn viewers off of a prequel. That wasn't the case at all when, last week, House of the Dragon's premiere was watched by 9.9 million viewers, breaking the record for an HBO series debut, and was subsequently picked up for a second season.
Now, according to Inside HBO Max, House of the Dragon episode 2 has topped its own record-breaking series premiere in viewership. The second episode was watched by 10.2 million domestic viewers on HBO Max and linear television combined, according to Nielsen and other first party data. Check out some of the numbers below:
Due to a 2 percent increase in viewership from its series premiere to episode 2, House of the Dragon is knocking on the door of 25 million individual viewers in the United States after just one week of availability. Its predecessor, Game of Thrones, has also seen several surges in viewership over recent months, marking 8 consecutive weeks of growth. Game of Thrones was also the second-watched title on HBO Max last week behind House of the Dragon, proving that Martin's on-screen universe is more popular than ever.
It wouldn't have been surprising if House the Dragon's viewership dropped off dramatically after the series premiere as the immense hype naturally began to dissipate. This was the case with another prequel series, Better Call Saul, which, riding off the anticipation from Breaking Bad's satisfying conclusion, garnered nearly 7 million viewers for its series premiere in 2015, only to come back down to earth with only 3.4 million for episode 2. Instead, House of the Dragon has defied expectations yet again with a 2 percent increase in viewership from the highly-anticipated series premiere to episode 2. House of the Dragon already has an immense built-in fanbase from Game of Thrones and could one day surpass its predecessor's popularity as the fantasy franchise continues to make it into the mainstream.
House of the Dragon releases new episodes Sundays on HBO.
Source: Inside HBO Max/Twitter