The Game of Thrones season seven premiere was seen live by 10.11 million viewers, a new peak for the biggest show on cable. Surely the record would stand until the season finale? Nope: the most recent episode, “The Spoils of War,” was even more popular, despite it leaking online a few days prior.
According to Watchers on the Wall, the original airing of Sunday’s episode (in which Daenerys went full Mother of Dragons) was watched by 10.17 million viewers. That doesn’t include everyone who watched it on DVR or streaming, or anyone who will catch a future airing this week. (It’s playing 23 hours a day on HBO 2 — the missing hour is an Arli$$ marathon.) For comparison’s sake, these are the ratings for the fourth episode from previous seasons:
Season 1: 2.45 million
Season 2: 3.65 million
Season 3: 4.87 million
Season 4: 6.95 million
Season 5: 6.82 million
Season 6: 7.82 million
Here’s Game of Thrones then:
Here’s Game of Thrones now:
Another record was broken in “The Spoils of War”: the most people on fire in one episode. “In one battle scene we set more stuntmen on fire than have ever been simultaneously set on fire,” showrunner David Benioff said about the scene in June. There were “73 fire burns,” according to stunt coordinator Rowley Irlam, who boasted, “No film or television show has ever done that in a whole show, let alone in one sequence. We also set 20 people on fire at one time, which is also a record.” Remember: this was just a random episode four. Imagine how big the finale (or considering what we know about Game of Thrones, the episode before the finale) is going to be.
(Via Watchers on the Wall)
