Premiered last Memorial Day weekend, HBO's "The Normal Heart" draws nearly 1 million viewers for its premiere, according to Nielsen estimates posted on Variety. A movie adaptation of Larry Kramer's 1985 play of the same title, the movie stars an ensemble cast including "White Collar" star Matt Bomer, "The Avengers" actor Mark Ruffalo, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts.

Now on the fifth place on the network's most watched original movies among its 17 films that premiered since 2010, "The Normal Heart" drew about 435,000 viewers for its repeat presentation which brings its total viewers to 1.4 million. Matt Damon and Michael Douglas' "Behind the Candelabra" still reigns as HBO's ratings champ with 2.39 million viewers, followed by 2012 "Game Change" that drew 2.12 million viewers.

The movie tells a story about an openly gay writer Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) from New York in the time when AIDS is not widely known as a sexually transmitted disease. Directed by Ryan Murphy, the highly-rated movie received a strong critical acclaim from critics and audiences with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a score of 93% based on 27 film critics reviews.

"Written, directed and acted with a passion that radiates off the screen," says Peter Travers of Rolling Stone. "The Normal Heart is drama at its most incendiary, a blunt instrument that is also poetic and profound. As gay men in crisis, Taylor Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Joe Mantello (who played Ned onstage) all excel. But it's Kramer, still raging over what's not being done, who tears at your heart."

"Indeed, the casting of these two men alone gives the play new life," says Maureen Ryan on her review on The Huffington Post. "Ruffalo is a performer of such depth he could, and did, infuse the Hulk with soul. Meanwhile, Bomer's fine work on 'White Collar' has proved him the actor Hollywood believed for decades could not exist - an openly gay man who can still make women swoon playing a straight lead. Here, the pair are just heartbreaking."

The movies' leading actors Bomer and Ruffalo recently posed in character on the latest issue cover of W Magazine. The "Magic Mike" actor plays Ruffalo's lover as Felix Turner and is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries in Critics' Choice Television Awards.