HBO has started the year with another adaptation and just like always they’ve knocked it out of the park, at least so far. The Last of Us is already being called the best TV show of 2023 and for good reasons. The creative team behind the series is a gold mine of talent with Craig Mazin (Chernobyl writer & creator) as showrunner and Neil Druckmann (game creator) working together how could the show not be anything less than perfect. The series is already the biggest debut for HBO this year (4.7 Million) and the second biggest in history, just behind House of the Dragon (10 Million). Both shows come from extremely popular IPs and hence these huge numbers make sense. HBO has invested a lot in their latest adaptation as reports claim that the total production cost of the show exceeds $100 Million.
Episode 2 saw a 22% jump from the pilot, which means 5.7 million viewers turned in for watching the second episode. This is the largest ever jump from for a HBO show from episode one to episode two. The report also revealed that after a week’s availability, the pilot has been watched by 18 Million viewers. After seeing such overwhelming response from the audience I was curious whether the show would be able to maintain this upward rising viewership trend and it looks like it has.
The Last of Us Episode 3 Viewership Just Keeps On Rising!
Just last week we got an update that The Last of Us has already been renewed for a second season after the overwhelming performance of Episode 1 and 2. This is similar to how House of the Dragon was renewed just after the record breaking pilot. The show is a bona fide hit for HBO and this is once again evidenced by numbers and they don’t lie. Episode 3 (review here) of the show lured in the most number of viewers as it was seen by 6.4 Million people. It is to be noted that this is a combination of Nielsen’s measurement of linear viewers across airings of Episode 3 on HBO on Sunday, plus Warner Bros. Discovery’s own first-party data regarding streams on HBO Max through the night.
This is a huge achievement as by the time the third episode comes out, the show starts losing some viewers and the viewership generally drops, even House of the Dragon witnessed a drop on cable even though its streaming performance was unparalleled. The viewership numbers of episode 3 is a 12% increase from last week and 22% increase from the pilot. Last week the show was averaging an audience of 18 Million, that number as predicted has gone up to 21.3 Million as an average of two episodes. After the success of episode 3 it may go higher. However, it is to be noted that there has been some backlash regarding the gay storyline and divergence from the game.
So we may see a drop in next week’s number if this episode has turned off some viewers. Another interesting factoid is that HBO now has four different shows across genres which have an average viewership of more than 15 Million. “The Last of Us” at 21.3 million viewers, “The White Lotus” Season 2 (which concluded in December 2022) at 15.5 million, “House of the Dragon” (which concluded its first season in October 2022) at 29 million, and “Euphoria” Season 2 (which concluded in February 2022) with 19.5 million.
Pedro Pascal leads the cast of The Last of Us as Joel, a smuggler hired to deliver Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, a teenager immune to the Cordyceps brain infection that has wiped out the world, to a group of survivors working to manufacture a cure. Alongside Pascal and Ramsey, the cast for HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation includes Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Nick Offerman and Storm Reid.
The first three episode of The Last of Us is available for streaming on HBO Max or Disney+ Hotstar, new episodes would release every week.
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