The Hollywood strikes had effectively halted production of film and TV shows including HBO’s The Last of Us while they were in full swing. Fortunately, the WGA strike is coming to an end and showrunner Craig Mazin has eagerly provided updates for the upcoming second season.
HBO greenlit the second season of The Last of Us after the series premiered – and became a smash hit instantly – on the streaming platform. However, production grounded to a halt as a result of the double whammy WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
The WGA announced earlier week that it has come to terms with major studios which means that writers for The Last of Us can now get back to work. Mazin recently shared an update on Threads regarding the second season of the HBO series, stating that the writers will resume work on the TV show the second that the strike ends.
“Very proud of the WGA and its membership, and excited to get back to work on The Last of Us Season 2,” Mazin wrote. “The strike has not yet been officially lifted, but the second it is, we will spring into action!”
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mazin revealed that the story for The Last of Us season 2 has already been mapped out ahead of the strike. The showrunner, who also serves as writer for the series alongside Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, has apparently submitted the script for the first episode an hour before the strike started.
Submitting the draft ahead of the strike may have made it possible for other production members to work on the new season. Unlike Season 1 which covered the whole first game, season 2 for the HBO series will only cover part of the events in The Last of Us Part 2.
The showrunners have plans to extend the series to a third installment to cover the parts that they will not be able to tackle in the upcoming season. Details for the upcoming season have been very limited and we do not know how many episodes the second installment will have or how much of the story it will cover.
Fans have also been speculating on who will be cast in the role of Abby in season 2. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mazin revealed that they may have already found an actor to take on the role.
“The strike stopped us in our tracks. Things were in process. Look, Abby was the first role that we wanted to tackle,” Mazin shared. “We’ve got a pretty good track record of making major cast announcements and people going, “Really?” which will probably continue. So people may disagree, but I think we got it right so far and the audience seems to feel we got it right and the Academy seems to feel we got it right.”
It will take a while before we see the start of filming for The Last of Us Season 2 with the SAG-AFTRA strike still in effect. Hopefully, the work stoppage ends soon so actors like Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey can resume shooting the upcoming series. We will likely see the premiere of the second season of The Last of Us sometime in early 2025 if the actors’ strike concludes before the year ends.
