After its recent pause on casting, HBO executive Francesca Orsi has a disappointing The Last of Us season 2 update. The post-apocalyptic series is based on the Naughty Dog game of the same name, revolving around smuggler Joel and teenager Ellie as they travel across the country in the hopes of finding a way to use her immunity to the Cordyceps fungi that destroyed the world to restore it. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey lead the HBO series, which has garnered the same critical acclaim as its source material.
During a recent interview with Deadline, Francesca Orsi was asked about how development was going for a number of HBO projects amid the WGA writers strike, including The Last of Us season 2. The network executive had a disappointing update for the acclaimed video game adaptation, confirming that casting and filming are currently delayed and that the release window is already now back in 2025. See what Orsi said below:
We were looking at The Last Of Us for some time in 2025. And The White Lotus was ideally looking to go in 2024 but there’s some question about timing of the strike.
Why The Last Of Us Season 2’s Delay Is A Good Thing
Though audiences are sure to be disappointed at the indefinite delay for the next season, The Last of Us season 2’s elongated hiatus could ultimately prove to be in the show’s favor. The series itself infamously endured a near-decade-long development cycle, having first begun as a movie before eventually transitioning to television with the game’s creator Neil Druckmann teaming with Chernobyl‘s Craig Mazin to write and develop the adaptation.
Despite concerns the game itself was already cinematic enough to make an adaptation unnecessary, The Last of Us proved the biggest silencer for the video game curse critics, scoring near universal acclaim from critics and viewers alike. Druckmann and Mazin frequently assured that a Last of Us season 2 wouldn’t be a rushed effort, as they wanted to recapture the same successes of season 1, but HBO had been eyeing a 2024 release, indicating a quick turnaround time in the writers room.
While it may not suffer the same lengthy delay as its next piece of source material, The Last of Us Part II, the next chapter of HBO’s The Last of Us is still likely to benefit from the extra time the way the 2020 game did, with Druckmann and Mazin taking further steps to hone in on what made season 1 an instant classic. Additionally, with the delay beginning from a writers strike and calls from actors for more fair pay, its resumption should come with the news of an amenable deal bringing the strike to a close.
Source: Deadline