As big of a hit as HBO’s The Last of Us turned out to be, it’s taken a bit of time for it to build up its momentum. This is most easily evidenced by its debut in the Nielsen streaming rankings, which saw the video game adaptation place in the number six spot for the week of Jan. 16-22.
The Last of Us saw 837 million minutes watched for the period, during which only the first episode was streaming, as well as a few hours worth of data for its second episode. A pretty impressive feat considering the established competition it was up against, with Netflix content dominating the top five spots above it.
Beating out the debut of HBO’s latest and greatest series was Ginny and Georgia, with a sizable 1.8 billion minutes viewed. Rounding out the rest of the top five (from highest to lowest) were That 90’s Show, The Walking Dead, Vikings: Valhalla, and Cocomelon, per Variety. Check out how Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey’s post-apocalyptic adventure stacked up against its peers in the chart below:
Even though The Last of Us was unable to crack the top five, keep in mind that this is only data available for its first full week of streaming, with pretty much only one episode. It will be interesting to see how it ranks over the next few weeks as the stats from late January and early February start rolling in, and whether or not it manages to clamber its way to the top.
If there’s any one week it will face some seriously stiff competition, it’ll likely be this week (Feb. 13 – 19), seeing as You has been an absolutely dominant force in streaming this week.
We’ll be keeping an eye on its progress. In the meantime, we’ll be able to catch a new episode of The Last of Us this Sunday on HBO Max.