HBO’s The Penguin, With 5.3 Million Viewers, Outdraws Succession’s Final-Season Premiere

Who says penguins can’t fly?

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The series premiere of HBO’s The Penguin — the Colin Farrell-led follow-up to Matt Reeves’ The Batman — racked up 5.3 million cross-platform U.S. viewers over its weekend debut.

That tally is bigger than both the fourth and final season premiere of Succession (4.9 million viewers over a similar amount of time) and The White Lotus’ Season 2 average (4.1 million viewers over a similar amount of time), and nearly on par with January’s Season 4/”Night Country” premiere of True Detective (5.7 million viewers over a similar amount of time).

TVLine readers gave the series opener an average grade of “A-“; read our in-depth recap .

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HBO also reports that The Penguin delivered the biggest four-day audience for a new series on Max in every region globally since The Last of Us in January 2023, and that the spinoff’s launch boosted interest in streaming The Batman on Max by 350%.

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