HBO’s premiere of “IT: Welcome to Derry” has drawn major eyeballs for the cabler – the series debuted to 5.7 million cross-platform viewers over its first three days.
That makes the prequel series the third biggest series debut in HBO’s history, behind only the “Game of Thrones” spin-off “House of the Dragon” which had nearly 10 million on its opening night alone, and the video game adaptation “The Last of Us” which had 4.7 million on its first night and was well past 5.7 million after three days.
Reviews for the season aren’t on the same calibre as those shows. On Metacritic, the series sits at a pretty average 60/100 compared to the first season scores of 69/100 for “House of the Dragon” and 84/100 for “The Last of Us”.
Both those shows went on to draw an average total of around 30 million viewers per episode in their initial runs. We won’t know Derry’s total for a while yet.
As Nielsen also confirmed – very, very few people are watching shows in LIve+Same Day on the cabler anymore – just 334,000 viewers tuned into the first airing on HBO, meaning 94% watched it either via HBO Max or on-air replays.
The premiere has drawn a lot of talk about both its highly gory and disturbing opening, and its climactic moments that pull off a bit of a violent surprise. As indicated, Pennywise didn’t show up in the premiere even as IT was very much a part of events that took place.
Source: THR
