It’s official: according to BloodyDisgusting, HBO ordered a full season of a TV series based on the critically-acclaimed video game The Last of Us. While this wasn’t unexpected, it is, nevertheless, good news. And we could all do with more of those.
The Last of Us is an action-adventure game first published by Naughty Dog in 2013 for Playstation 3. The game takes place two decades after an apocalyptic zombie outbreak that ravaged humanity. Its story follows Joel (voiced by Troy Baker), a smuggler hired to accompany a teenage girl called Ellie (voiced by Ashley Johnson) to another enclave across the dangerous remains of civilization. The Last of Us was a huge critical and commercial hit, leading to a sequel seven years later.
We first reported about The Last of Us TV series back in March. At that time, Craig Mazin — creator of HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl — was in talks to be its showrunner. HBO also hired Neil Druckmann, who created and co-wrote The Last of Us, to help adapt his game into a TV series. In June, Mazin’s Chernobyl collaborator Johan Renck joined the project. Renck got a start making music videos. He also directed episodes of TV shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. Finally, it’s worth pointing out that one of the show’s executive producers will be Carolyn Strauss. A former president of HBO’s entertainment division, she commissioned shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and The Wire.
