Following a huge debut of the first episode, HBO announced today that its new drama series House of the Dragon has been renewed for a second season. The series, based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, is set 200 years before Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen.
House of the Dragon debuted Sunday, August 21, to the largest audience for any new original series in HBO history. The first episode has now been seen by over 20 million viewers across linear, On Demand, and HBO Max platforms in the U.S., based on a combination of Nielsen data and first-party data.
“We are beyond proud of what the entire House of the Dragon team has accomplished with season one. Our phenomenal cast and crew undertook a massive challenge and exceeded all expectations, delivering a show that has already established itself as must-see-TV,” said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President of HBO Programming.
“A huge thank you to George, Ryan, and Miguel for leading us on this journey. We couldn’t be more excited to continue bringing to life the epic saga of House Targaryen with season two.”
The House of the Dragon premiere drew 9.986 million viewers across linear and HBO Max platforms in the U.S. Sunday night. The premiere also marked the largest series launch on HBO Max across the U.S., LatAm, and EMEA, driving an unprecedented level of concurrent streams on the platform.
Typically, Sunday night viewership for an HBO series will represent just 20%-40% of the show’s total gross audience. The House of the Dragon premiere was also a hit on social media, where fans showed up in droves to celebrate the return to Westeros.
“It was wonderful to see millions of ‘Game of Thrones’ fans return with us to Westeros last night. ‘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,” said Casey Bloys, Chief Content Officer of HBO & HBO Max.
“We look forward to sharing with audiences what else George, Ryan, and Miguel have in store for them this season.”
New episodes of House of the Dragon will debut each week at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max, leading up to the finale on October 23.
George R.R. Martin and Ryan Condal serve as co-creators of the series, which stars Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans.
The show’s additional cast members include Milly Alcock, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Emily Carey, Harry Collett, Ryan Corr, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jefferson Hall, and David Horovitch.
The cast is rounded out by Wil Johnson, John Macmillan, Graham McTavish, Ewan Mitchell, Theo Nate, Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson, Phia Saban, Gavin Spokes, and Savannah Steyn.
Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal are showrunners, and the pair also serve as executive producers along with Martin, Vince Gerardis, Sara Lee Hess, and Ron Schmidt.
Clare Kilner (The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, The Wedding Date) and Geeta V. Patel (Meet the Patels, The Witcher) direct the series. Greg Yaitanes (Banshee, House) is the director and co-executive producer.
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills in 2018 to cover the latest news on streaming, movies, TV, and video games.