HBO renew ‘The Last of Us’ adaptation for second season
The TV adaptation of the hugely popular video game The Last Of Us, which stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey and airs on HBO, has reportedly been renewed for a second season after only two aired episodes. The show debuted on January 15th and has already picked up a considerable fanbase online.
The series follows the original game’s narrative as a fungal infection infiltrates humanity and turns civilians into savage and brutal monsters. Pascal plays the leading man, Joel, a hardened survivor hired to smuggle Ellie, played by Ramsey, a 14-year-old girl, out of the quarantine zone. This job soon becomes brutal and harrowing as the duo travel across the US and come to depend on one another for survival against the creatures.
“I’m humbled, honoured, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey. The collaboration with Craig Mazin, our incredible cast & crew, and HBO exceeded my already high expectations,” says original game creator Neil Druckmann. “Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two! On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog & PlayStation, thank you!”
Adapter Craig Marzin, who also directed the spectacular series Chernobyl, added: “I’m so grateful to Neil Druckmann and HBO for our partnership, and I’m even more grateful to the millions of people who have joined us on this journey. The audience has given us the chance to continue, and as a fan of the characters and world Neil and Naughty Dog created, I couldn’t be more ready to dive back in.”
Talking to Collider, star Pascal compared his role in the zombie series to his one in Disney +’s Star Wars spin-off series The Mandalorian, where he stars as the titular character. “They’re both very, very grumpy, aren’t they? And they’re reluctant, hardened figures under their own different forms of armor,” the actor shared. “The more I talk, the less difference there is between them. I think that for someone like Joel, there’s such a rich source material to be researched there.”
Pascal added: “And also, what it could be, more than anything, is in the experience of playing a full realisation of this type of character, where the emotional richness of this experience of a hardened human becoming human again, through the experience of a relationship, can expand itself to so many different types of storytelling. I don’t know, necessarily, how to identify what’s different about it, outside of how rich it was to play Joel and to know that everything about him hinged directly to his relationship to Ellie.”
HBO’s The Last of Us is reportedly the largest television production in Canadian history. The show also stars Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s younger brother Tommy; Merle Dandridge as resistance leader Marlene; and Anna Torv as Joel’s smuggler partner Tess.
