Posted in: HBO, Preview, TV | Tagged: casey bloys, HBO, hbo max, preview, the last of us

The Last of Us Won't Be Hitting Screens in 2022: HBO/HBO Max Confirms

Published Wed, 16 Feb 2022 12:18:19 -0600

Last updated Wed, 16 Feb 2022 12:21:29 -0600

Earlier today, series star Pedro Pascal (Joel) offered some insight into Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin's upcoming HBO series adaptation of the video game franchise The Last of Us along with reassurances to video games fans about what they can expect when the series hits screens. Now we're learning when viewers can expect the series to debut… and it won't be this year. HBO & HBO Max programming head Casey Bloys confirmed that the series (which was already a question mark for this year when it didn't appear on HBO/HBO Max's "Coming in 2022" trailer) "is shooting right now in Canada" (currently in Calgary) and though they "haven't announced an air date yet," Bloys made it clear: "it's not 2022."

That said, Bloys likes what he's seen so far, adding, "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." Just don't compare it to that other HBO series. "There is no next Game of Thrones," Bloys explained. "I've been here long enough that I've been through, what's the next 'Sopranos,' what's next 'Game of Thrones', now what's next 'Succession'. There is no next 'Game of Thrones'." Joining Pascal are Bella Ramsey (Ellie), Pedro Pascal (Joel), Gabriel Luna (Tommy, Joel's younger brother), Nico Parker (Sarah), Merle Dandridge (resistance leader Marlene), Jeffrey Pierce (Perry), Anna Torv (Tess), Nick Offerman (Bill), Murray Bartlett (Frank), and Storm Reid (Riley Abel).

Based on the critically acclaimed video game developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel (Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone to the Fireflies, a cure-searching organization. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both traverse across the U.S. & depend on each other for survival.

Ramsey's Ellie is a 14-year-old who has never known anything but a ravaged planet, struggling 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. Luna's Tommy is Joel's younger brother- a formal soldier who still holds on to his sense of idealism and hope for a better world. Dandridge's Marlene is the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime, while Parker has been tapped for the role of Joel's daughter, Sarah.

Pierce is set to recur as Perry, a rebel in a quarantine zone. Bartlett has been cast as Frank and Offerman as Bill, two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town. Torv's Tess is a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world who (at least in the video game) works with Joel to survive and smuggle weapons in & out of Boston, and accompanies Joel on the mission to smuggle Ellie to the Fireflies. Reid's Abel is an orphaned girl growing up in a post-apocalyptic Boston (in the video game DLC "The Last of Us: Left Behind," the Yaani Kang-voiced Riley accompanies her best friend Ellie before Joel enters the scene

The Last of Us is coming to HBO (Image: WarnerMedia)

Written by Mazin and Druckmann with Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole, Closeness) directing the pilot, the series is set to be executive produced by Carolyn Strauss (Chernobyl, Game of Thrones), Naughty Dog's Evan Wells, PlayStation Productions' Asad Qizilbash & Carter Swan, Mazin, and Druckmann. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, with PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and Naughty Dog producing. Academy Award nominee Jasmila Žbanić (Quo vadis, Aida) and Ali Abbasi (Border) join pilot-director Balagov in the director's chair.