Latest Viewership Numbers Show That ‘The Penguin’ Is HBO’s Biggest Hit in Ages

DC Studios is off to a good start in the last few days. The documentary following the life of Superman, Christopher Reeve, is currently in selected theaters, boasting a perfect Rotten Tomatoes audience and critics scores.

There’s also the worldwide release of ‘The Penguin’ show, a spinoff of Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ starring Robert Pattinson.

‘The Penguin’ stars Colin Farrell reprising his role as Ozz Cobb, the show takes place about a week following the events of ‘The Batman,’ and focuses on the aftermath of the murder of the Falcone family leader.

Gotham currently has a power vacuum in place, and Oz is doing his damnest to fill it with himself, all the while being shadowed by Sofia Falcone, who has just recently been released from Arkham Asylum.

The general reactions to the show were beyond amazing, with fans and critics alike praising both the cast and the plot. Fans even went as far as to call the pilot “the greatest pilot in TV history.”

Now according to the latest viewership numbers, HBO truly does have a hit on its hands. Variety reports that the show attracted 5.3 million U.S. viewers across all platforms since its September 19 debut, surpassing the final season premiere of ‘Succession’ (4.9 million) and the second season premiere of ‘The White Lotus’ (4.1 million).

It also achieved the largest 4-day audience for a new series on Max globally since ‘The Last of Us’ in January 2023.

When compared to other high-profile shows that were released in recent times, ‘The Penguin’ also holds up as one of the biggest hits. According to numbers released by Samba TV, 902,000 households had seen the premiere of ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2, which was a significant drop compared to the first season.

However, these numbers were ultimately “confirmed” as incomplete as the Head of Amazon MGM Studios, confirmed that ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2 is doing much better than the initial numbers suggested, with the series attracting 40 million viewers in 11 days, which averages to around 3.6 million per day.

HBO’s own ‘House of the Dragon’ season 2 also attracted a much greater audience, standing at 7.8 million viewers for the show’s premiere as per WBD’s and Nielsen’s data.

Disney+’s ‘The Acolyte’ premiered with the first two episodes and 4.8 views in the first 24 hours.

The numbers of MCU’s ‘Agatha All Along’ that premiered 24 hours prior to ‘The Penguin’ are still not available, but the overall reception of ‘The Penguin’ was much better as the show holds a much greater approval rate on both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.

This is all-around great news, especially in the context of Reeves’ Batman universe as a whole. As you are probably aware, ‘The Batman’ and ‘The Penguin’ take place in a cinematic universe separate from DCU and are not connected to Gunn’s upcoming projects.

Reeves dubbed his universe The Batman Epic Crime Saga, and following the news that ‘Gotham P.D.’ was canceled, we were also pleased to find out that more spinoffs are in development.

‘The Penguin’ Episode 2 will be available on HBO Max on Sunday, September 29th, at around 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT.

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