The Last of Us Has Stronger Debut Than House of the Dragon
HBO's live-action adaptation of the hit video game series The Last of Us is officially one of the biggest hits the network has had since Game of Thrones. According to Deadline, Nielsen has finally revealed the streaming numbers for the series outpaced Game of Thrones' House of the Dragon spinoff with coming in at 6th place for the week of January 16th to January 22nd with 837m minutes viewed. The series actually premiered the week before the 16th but couldn't be placed on previous charts because it had only been out for a few hours when Nielsen's measurement window ended. Nielsen also revealed that while they didn't report it, The Last of Us had a whopping 223 million minutes viewed during those few hours. The Last of Us has already been renewed for a second season and these numbers should definitely leave the good people at Warner Bros. and HBO Max happy.
Mazin, the Emmy-winning creator of HBO's Chernobyl, produced The Last of Us alongside Druckmann, the creator behind the hit video game series. In an interview earlier this year, the writer said The Last of Us is the "greatest" video game story ever told. "It's an open-and-shut case: this is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games," Mazin said in an interview with Empire Magazine. "[Joel and Ellie] didn't shoot anything out of their eyeballs. They were just people. And that, in and of itself, is remarkably rare in games. The fact that they kept it so grounded, and really made you feel – I had never experienced anything like it, and I've been playing video games since 1977."
Joining Pascal (Joel) and Ramsey (Ellie) include Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Anna Torv as Tess, Nico Parker as Sarah, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Storm Reid as Riley, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence. Original game stars Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, having played the part of Ellie and Joel in both video games, are also set to appear.
The first five episodes of The Last of Us are now streaming on HBO Max. The show's first season is set to last nine episodes in total with new episodes rolling out on a weekly basis.
Which series do you prefer? Are you excited for the next episode of The Last of Us? Let us know in the comments below or by hitting up our writer @NateBrail on Twitter!