HBO’s TV series based on the popular video game The Last of Us is a massive undertaking. We heard last July that the first season of the show would be filming in Alberta, Canada for twelve months straight (following six months of prep)… and seven months later, the show is indeed still in production. If you’ve been hoping they’d have the first batch of episodes ready to premiere by the end of 2022, we have some disappointing news to share today: HBO and HBO Max Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys told Deadline
It’s not going to air in 2022. They are still shooting in Canada. I imagine you will see it in ’23. I have seen some early episodes and I’m very excited. Craig (Mazin) did Chernobyl for us, he is a fantastic writer and director. What I’ve seen looks amazing, so I’m excited for it, but it will not be in ’22.”
The show’s writer Craig Mazin is also one of the directors on the series, as are Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole), Jasmila Zbanic (Quo vadis, Aida), Peter Hoar (Doctor Who), Jeremy Webb (The Punisher), Liza Johnson (What We Do in the Shadows), and the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann.
The The Last of Us video game’s story is set
years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for.
The cast of HBO’s The Last of Us includes Pedro Pascal as Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”; Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “a 14-year-old orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town”; and Storm Reid as Ellie’s best friend Riley.
The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and game developer Naughty Dog. Druckmann serves as executive producer alongside Carolyn Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions, and Mazin.
Every episode of the show has a budget that well exceeds eight figures.