Sunday’s premiere of House of the Dragon, the HBO spinoff of Game of Thrones was a big success. It delivered 10 million viewers overnight. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is an HBO record for a series opener. Almost on the level with the premiere of season six of Game of Thrones. In fact, it crashed the HBO Max server affecting some viewers. Since then, the numbers have climbed to 20 million in the U.S. across on-demand and HBO Max.

This success has made HBO make the easy decision to renew House of the Dragon for a second season. It had been no secret that the future of the Game of Thrones spinoff relied a lot on how the series performed in its opening week. Viewership and social media reactions suggest that audiences were hungry for more from this franchise after its lackluster finish of season eight of the main series.

This success also bodes well for the future of other spinoffs that are in the works over at HBO. Four of those are scripted and three of them and three are animated. Of course, not all of them will get a green light, but that does mean that their odds are better now.

It will be interesting to see the timeline for the series. The first season of House of the Dragon took 10 months of production and a great amount of time for postproduction. It would be a safe prediction to say that we won’t see a second season until 2024.

ALSO SEE: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON HAS VERY PRECISE ENDING PLANNED SAY SHOWRUNNERS

Here is the synopsis for HBO’s House of the Dragon

The reign of House Targaryen begins: House of the Dragon, the prequel to Game of Thrones, is here. Based on George R.R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood,” the series, which is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen.

Paddy Considine (HBO’s The Third Day and The Outsider), Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Steve Toussaint (It’s a Sin, Doctor Who), Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, Fabien Frankel and Rhys Ifans to star. Additional cast members include Milly Alcock, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Emily Carey, Harry Collett, Ryan Corr, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jefferson Hall, David Horovitch, Wil Johnson, John Macmillan, Graham McTavish, Ewan Mitchell, Theo Nate, Matthew Needham, Bill Paterson, Phia Saban, Gavin Spokes, and Savannah Steyn.

Martin and Ryan Condal serve as co-creators on the series. Miguel Sapochnik and Condal are showrunners, and the pair also serve as executive producers along with Martin, Sara Hess, Jocelyn Diaz, Vince Gerardis and Ron Schmidt. Clare Kilner and Geeta Vasant Patel also direct the series. Greg Yaitanes is director and co-executive producer. Game of Thrones and Westworld composer Ramin Djawadi scored the series.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter