Bella Ramsey, who starred as Ellie in the recently concluded HBO television series, The Last of Us, has revealed the release window for the second season of the highly successful video game adaptation.
During an interview on the Jonathan Ross Show on Saturday, Ramsey stated that the follow-up season will premiere in 2 years or less, saying:
It will be a while. I think we’ll probably shoot at the end of this year, beginning of next. So it’ll probably be the end of 2024, early 2025.
Ramsey’s words hardly come as a surprise. The Last of Us season 1 was a massive undertaking for HBO, with an 18-month production period and a humongous budget. If the second season takes anywhere as long as the first to produce, Ramsey’s estimation sounds accurate but only if production begins this year.
The Last of Us is one of HBO’s most successful shows ever both critically and commercially.
It scored a nearly perfect Rotten Tomatoes rating and debuted to 4.7 million viewers, the second-highest debut episode in HBO history, just behind House of the Dragon.
Since then, the show has gone from strength to strength until it eventually became the "most-watched show in the history of HBO Max in both Europe and Latin America," with an average of 30.4 million viewers across its first season.
The Last of Us is based on the video game series of the same name. The show’s first season adapted the first game in the series while the second series will be based on the second title. However, given the fact that the second game is longer and bigger, the show’s creators revealed the adaptation will take multiple seasons, confirming that the series will run at least for two more seasons.
Apart from Ramsey, The Last of Us also starred Pedro Pascal as Joel. Together, the duo formed the show’s two protagonists with Nico Parker, Merle Dandridge, John Hannah, Gabriel Luna, Nick Offerman, and Graham Greene, among others, serving as guest actors. Even though the second season will feature a time jump and Ramsey’s character, Ellie, will be older than she was in the first season, co-showrunner Craig Mazin has confirmed that Ramsey won't be replaced.
Viewers might be interested to know that the giraffe present in the show’s finale is a real animal and not CGI. The show was filmed close to the Alberta zoon and the showrunners decided to recreate the same scene from the video game with as much authenticity as possible.
In other news, the highly successful outing of The Last of Us is putting pressure on other planned video game adaptations. Cory Balrog, an executive producer of Prime Video’s God of War adaptation, recently revealed that, although he is proud of the show’s success, it is putting "no small amount of pressure, frustration and a wee bit of jealousy" on him.
Finally, despite the multiple reports that Naughty Dog, the studio behind the highly popular game series, is working on the third installment, Neil Druckmann, the studio’s vice-president and the game’s creator, has refused to lend credence to them.
