Matthew McConaughey & Woody Harrelson's new HBO Series 'True Detective' breaks records with 2.3 Million viewers for premiere episode

HBO's new series True Detective premiered this weekend, breaking viewership records for the network in terms of debut episodes. The new crime drama starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson racked up 2.3 million viewers for its first episode, beating out the Game of Thrones and The Newsroom series premiere numbers. This wasn't the network's biggest debut, however. In 2010, Boardwalk Empire pulled in an incredibly impressive 4.8 million viewers. Still, this new show has a promising future after such an incredible start.

Deadline reports:

Before Girls at 10PM on Sunday there was the series premiere of True Detectives [sic], with McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as two Louisiana state police officers on the trail of a murderer. The new series pulled in 2.3 million viewers in it debut airing for the best HBO premiere since Boardwalk Empire launched in 2010 with 4.8 million viewers. True Detectives beat both the 2011 Game Of Thrones opener's 2.2 million and the now-heading for its third and final season The Newsroom, which drew 2.1 million in its 2012 beginning.

Are you going to be staying tuned to True Detective this year? HBO clearly hit the jackpot with this show, offering up an original story with each different season if the success continues. Think American Horror Story but much less ridiculous.

"Over the summer of 2012, when everybody else was on vacation, I was locked up in a converted garage in Van Nuys working on the script," series creator Nic Pizzolatto said of his new show. "It took two and half to three months-it gets hazy-but about five hundred pages. The walls were covered with post it notes filled with tiny handwriting. My office looked like something out of A Beautiful Mind. That was part of the reason why I didn't put together a writer's room. I just didn't know how to explain to anybody what I had been doing. I powered down and got through it."