The Last of Us HBO TV show arrives in less than a week, and the various trailers and promos have created some major anticipation — both among fans of games and people simply hyped for a Pedro Pascal zombie show with Bella Ramsey, aka Game of Thrones Lyanna Mormont, along for the ride. The Last of Us HBO show adapts the popular post-apocalyptic video game series from Naughty Dog and Sony. Production on the Last of Us HBO show was headed up by Craig Mazin, creator of the acclaimed miniseries Chernobyl, and Neil Druckmann, writer and director of The Last of Us games. Here's why Pedro Pascal's new series is already creating conversations.
HBO is bringing the acclaimed video game The Last of Us to life. On the surface, The Last of Us HBO show is a typical zombie apocalypse series, but much like the games, both the narrative and setting offer so much more. While the iconic clickers are guaranteed to terrify audiences, the Last of Us HBO trailers already show they're not the main attraction. It's the characters, Pedro Pascal's Joel and Bella Ramsey's Ellie, that take center stage over The Cordyceps Brain Infection that's turned most of humanity into violent, mindless creatures. With less than a week ahead of its premiere, anticipation has never been higher. Here's everything you need to know about The Last Of Us HBO TV series, including release date, story detail, and cast.
HBO's The Last Of Us Release Date
The Last Of Us releases on HBO and HBO Max on January 15, 2023. The wait has been a long time coming for fans of The Last of Us games, the first of which was released way back in 2013, almost exactly a decade before The Last of Us TV series release date on HBO. Demand for a live-action The Last of Us HBO adaptation emerged almost as soon as the first game released on PS3. Now, nearly ten years later, The Last Of Us is debuting on HBO. Joel and Ellie's story — a Writers Guild of America 2014 Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing winner — can finally reach the wider audience it deserves in January 2023.
The Last Of Us TV Series Cast
The cast for The Last Of Us HBO show has been slowly revealed over the years since the show's initial announcement in March 2020. Despite both the show and the games being full of tense moments involving Cordyceps-infected clickers and post-apocalyptic spectacle, it's the characters and cast of The Last of Us that will ensnare viewers. The Last of Us video game follows survivors Joel and Ellie as they cross the United States in search of a cure, and seeing their dynamic in live-action is what has fans of the game so invested in who HBO cast in The Last Of Us.
HBO clearly understood just how important nailing the casting of Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us was. As revealed early on in the promo, teasers, and trailers for The Last of Us, Joel Miller is being played by the Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal. Like the games, Pascal's Joel on The Last of Us HBO TV show is a troubled smuggler unwillingly pulled into trying to save the world. His companion/cargo, the Cordyceps-immune 14-year-old Ellie, will be played by Bella Ramsey. Just like Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey also appeared in HBO's Game of Thrones, where Pascal played Oberyn Martell and Ramsey played Lyanna Mormont.
Joining Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie for The Last Of Us HBO show is an entire ensemble cast, playing both original characters and ones from the games. Here's the cast for HBO's The Last Of Us as is known so far:
- After winning multiple awards for her portrayal of Ellie in Naughty Dog's Last of Us video games, Ashley Johnson will appear in The Last of Us on HBO as Anna, a pregnant woman bringing a child into a world that's all but fallen apart.
- Fellow Last of Us game star Troy Baker is joining Johnson in taking up a role on the HBO series. Troy will be playing James, a leader figure among a group fo settlers.
- Merel Dandrige as Marlene, reprising her role from The Last of Us games as the head of resistance movement the Fireflies.
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Melanie Lynskey is playing Kathleen in The Last of Us - an original character for the HBO series.
- Mindhunter's Anna Torv as Tess, Joel's smuggling partner.
- Joel's little brother Tommy will be played by Gabriel Luna. Luna worked with HBO before on True Detective, and was hand-selected for the role of Tommy in The Last of Us after submitting an audition tape to Mazin, Druckmann, and executive producer Carolyn Strauss.
- Nico Parker of Dumbo (2019) fame will play Joel's daughter Sarah.
- Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman will be bringing a little Ron Swanson magic as Bill, a survivalist.
- Murray Bartlett (The White Lotus) plays Frank, a neighbor of Offerman's Bill. Frank had no dialogue in the game, so casting Bartlett is a clear sign HBO has expanded the character's role for The Last of Us TV series.
- Riley Abel, who first appeared in The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC in the games, is played by Euphoria's Storm Reid.
- Jeffrey Pierce played Joel's brother Tommy in The Last of Us game, but in the show on HBO he's playing an original character called Perry — a rebel living in an area quarantined by the military.
- Graham Green and Elaine Miles will be playing married couple Marlon and Florence, two more original characters for The Last of Us show.
- Henry and his son Sam have been cast in the HBO The Last of Us adaptation as being played by Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Woodard.
HBO's The Last Of Us Story Details
The story in The Last of Us HBO TV series will focus on and adapt the full events of the first game, telling the story of how Joel and Ellie meet and their original journey together. Mazin and Druckmann have said that the show will expand on the game’s original story content, fleshing out what’s already there rather than removing any characters or narrative elements. That means nothing from the games will be radically undone or de-canonized, but there'll be more details that didn’t fit in the games. The inclusion of new characters like Jeffrey Price's Perry, and the expanded role of previously-minor Last of Us game character Frank, no doubt factor into this.
The producers have also said that material from The Last of Us Part II could be included in the HBO show, but that would likely manifest in minor ways. The odds point to a series primarily focused on the first game, with late seasons teasing the second installment in relatively small ways, potentially with an introduction of a young Abby at the Firefly compound. HBO's The Last of Us seems to be keeping the game's award-winning story intact. As well as keeping fans happy, this means that audiences unfamiliar with the games who are just interested in the new Pedro Pascal HBO show are definitely in for a treat, too.
What The Last Of Us Trailers Show Looks Incredible
The first footage from The Last of Us HBO show arrived during the premiere of House of the Dragon in August 2022, but it wasn't until September that a teaser trailer was released. With the initial teaser for The Last of Us live adaptation, HBO was surprisingly generous with how much they revealed. There were several lingering glimpses of Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsay as Ellie, as well as plenty of snippets of apocalyptic carnage. Even the iconic Clickers were given a chance to show just how much dread and suspense they'll be creating in the new format. Following this teaser the first full-length trailer for The Last of Us came, but not until December 2022.
In this full-length trailer for The Last of Us, viewers were given chance to get their first proper experience of Pascal's Joel and Ramsay's Ellie in action. Much of the rest of The Last of Us cast was revealed or further shown too, including Nick Offerman's Bill and Storm Reid's Riley. The December 2022 The Last of Us trailer also showcased some of the impressive cinematography and sprawling apocalyptic set-pieces. This trailer also firmly established the core premise of The Last of Us's plot — that Ellie is infected, and Joel must take her west.
While The Last of Us HBO trailer revealed a many video game nods, tons of promotional footage and teasers have come out since December that highlight the major players of the series and outline the plot for a new audience. Each of these BTS photos and promos have shed further light into The Last of Us universe, such as using practical effects for the clickers, and exactly how close creators are sticking to its videogame counterpart. So far, everything that's been shown has been incredibly well received, as it's clear showrunners have remained faithful to the source material. Everything from the costuming to the sets has been praised, as these wild-west post-apocalyptic images feel more harrowingly possible than even the early seasons of The Walking Dead.
The Last Of Us On HBO - Format And Runtime
The Last of Us debuts on HBO and HBO Max on Sunday, January 15th, 2023, and will be available to stream in 4K for HBO Max customers. There will be 9 episodes of The Last of Us, each with a runtime of around an hour. With episodes airing weekly, The Last of Us will be keeping viewers on the edge of their seats until March 2023. The Last of Us took just under a year to shoot. Not only is it the first time HBO has ventured into the realm of video-game adaptations, but it's also the largest TV production in Canadian history (The Last of Us was filmed mostly in Alberta).
The Live-Action Clickers Are Already Terrifying
While Joel and Ellie are at the core of The Last of Us HBO show, the series is also bringing one of the most harrowing monsters in video game history to live-action — the Clickers. The Cordyceps fungus in The Last of Us doesn't just turn infected into World War Z or 28 Days Later-style living zombies, nor are they undead shamblers like The Walking Dead's Walkers. While earlier stages of the Cordyceps brain infection certainly have parallels to typical zombies, the clicker stage (the 3rd of 4 stages of infection) turns unfortunate victims into something else entirely.
The clickers in The Last of Us HBO show get their name from the continual clicking sound they emit, a form of echolocation. They need this because the fungal protrusion from their skull have rendered them blind. As the trailers for The Last of Us already reveal, Joel and Ellie hiding defenseless while a blind, eyeless live-action clicker tries to sound out their location is already a recipe for some incredibly tense television. While The Last of Us games had many variations of Cordyceps infected, it was the Clickers that really resonated with players. What's been shown of The Last of Us TV series has been received incredibly warmly by fans of the games — the fact that HBO clearly hasn't overlooked the importance of the Clickers is definitely a contributing factor.
Pre-Release Screenings Of The Last Of Us Were Received Well
The Last of Us HBO show is already making headlines as it performed incredibly well for prescreening audiences. Many are anxious that The Last of Us will be yet another victim of the "video game movie curse" that's plagued other adaptations like Uncharted. Thankfully, the series' Rotten Tomatoes score already indicates otherwise, as the pre-screenings have given The Last of Us HBO show a score of 100% certified fresh. The first highlight has been Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie respectively. The actors shine in their roles, perfectly embodying their video game counterparts while making the characters entirely their own.
While The Last of Us season 1 follows the first game closely, creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have expanded the universe in meaningful ways. Joel and Ellie's bond is further explored and expounded upon, making The Last of Us HBO show an intriguing drama, rather than an outright horror. The "zombie" fighting action is certainly high stakes, but it doesn't occur so often that it overloads the character-building content — just like in the games. All in all The Last of Us HBO show is on the right track to breaking the video game curse, and prescreening reviews have proven this.