“Westworld” came out of the gate strong for HBO. The sci-fi drama from executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy drew 3.3 million total viewers across cable and digital platforms Sunday night. That makes it the best debut for a new HBO show since 2014’s premiere of “True Detective,” which also drew 3.3 million viewers multiplatform. “Westworld” also more than doubled the live-plus-same day multiplatform viewing for HBO’s last new drama, “Vinyl,” which drew 1.4 million viewers. That show was canceled in June on the heels of a season that drew poor ratings and bad reviews.
The premiere numbers for “Westworld” are strong, but not yet near the neighborhood of HBO’s most popular show, “Game of Thrones,” which HBO claimed in data provided to USA Today in June averaged 23.3 million viewers across all platforms for its sixth season.
Executive produced by Nolan, Joy, and J.J. Abrams, “Westworld” is based on the 1973 film by Michael Crichton about a theme park populated with human-like robots. The series stars Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright and Rodrigo Santoro. It is the first new drama to premiere on HBO since Casey Bloys was promoted to entertainment president of the cable channel in May.
