Here’s the first image from the show, which was posted in September. | Image: Neil Druckmann on Twitter
HBO’s upcoming The Last of Us series seems like it will be a faithful adaptation of the hit video game — but unfortunately, it won’t be airing this year, according to comments HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys made to The Hollywood Reporter.
“The Last of Us is shooting right now in Canada. We haven’t announced an air date yet,” Bloys said. “But it’s not 2022. They’re still shooting in Calgary.” He said something similar to Deadline, too: “[The Last of Us] is not going to air in 2022 — they are still shooting in Canada. I imagine you will see it in ’23.”
While it’s a bummer that the show won’t be out in 2022, I’m just fine with HBO taking all the time it needs. The Last of Us is one of my favorite video games, and I really want to see HBO do it justice, so I am okay waiting to see the show until it’s ready.
The series will star The Mandalorian’s Pedro Pascal as Joel, Game of Thrones fan-favorite Bella Ramsey as Ellie, and Merle Dandridge will be reprising her role as Marlene from the games. Neil Druckmann, the creative director behind the game series, is an executive producer and co-writer of the television show, and Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin is also serving as a writer and exec producer.
The upcoming show is part of what seems to be a big effort from Sony to make film and TV adaptations of its games. A long-in-development Uncharted movie debuts this week, for example, and there’s a Ghost of Tsushima movie and Twisted Metal TV show in the works as well.