The debut of HBO’s His Dark Materials scored impressive numbers considering the Monday competition it was up against as it made its American TV debut.
The cabler’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels, which stars Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Clarke Peters, James McAvoy and Lin-Manuel Miranda snagged 700,000 viewers across HBO and the channel’s various platforms for its well-promoted premiere on the AT&T-owned outlet. You may think those numbers are a bit soft but the debut faced a well-watched Monday Night Football game on ESPN between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants.
Also of note is that the stateside results are one of the best debuts HBO has seen on a Monday. In fact, the only Monday night HBO show to debut better than His Dark Materials was multiple Emmy winner Chernobyl. That Craig Mazin-created miniseries, which chronicled the horrible nuclear disaster of April 1986, premiered May 6 with 756,000 viewers.
None of this tops the impressive UK debut for His Dark Materials which was watched by a massive 7.2 million viewers the day before it made its stateside debut on HBO.
