Boardwalk Empire Renewed for Second Season

After just one episode the HBO series Boardwalk Empire has been renewed for a second season. The pilot, directed by Martin Scorsese, cost an astonishing $18 million to make and going forward the average cost per episode reportedly is $5 million. That is a high number for most hour long dramas on broadcast channels however it actually comes in quite a bit lower than HBO’s own The Pacific that aired earlier this year.

The investment has paid off as the show debuted to 4.8 million live viewers and totaled 7.1 million viewers when including the two repeats on Sunday evening. Those numbers don’t include on-demand viewers since then which will certainly raise it a significant amount more. It was the biggest series premiere on HBO since Deadwood in 2004 (which had The Sopranos as a lead-in).

Though response to the premiere has been positive reviewers have stated that the pilot is quite possibly the weakest of the early set of episodes so that is good to hear going forward. I haven’t gotten an opportunity to watch it yet but will write up some thoughts on it once I do.