The Last of Us HBO Show Greenlit for Series

HBO has given the go ahead to a TV adaptation for The Last of Us, the company announced this week. The adaptation was first announced back in March when it was said that the project was in the works with Neil Druckmann, the writer and creative director for the games The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II, will indeed be on board as an executive producer and a writer of the series. Craig Mazin of HBO’s Chernobyl fame will also serve as a writer and executive producer on HBO’s The Last of Us.

Though the series was officially announced months ago with much more information coming out about it since then from those leading the creative charge on The Last of Us, HBO’s announcement on Friday has officially greenlit the production of the series. HBO said the series will be a co-production between Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog.

Francesca Orsi, the executive vice president of HBO Programming, shared comments about the HBO series in a press release that spoke highly of the project and those in charge of it including fellow executive director Carolyn Strauss.

“Craig and Neil are visionaries in a league of their own,” Orsi said. “With them at the helm alongside the incomparable Carolyn Strauss, this series is sure to resonate with both die-hard fans of The Last of Us games and newcomers to this genre-defining saga. We’re delighted to partner with Naughty Dog, Word Games, Sony and PlayStation to adapt this epic, powerfully immersive story.”

Little was said about the specifics of HBO’s The Last of Us to provide new details from what we already knew before. It’ll adapt the story laid out in Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us game where civilization falls apart because of a viral outbreak that turned people into brutal, infected creatures players of the games will be all too familiar with. Joel and Ellie will be the two protagonists of the series just as they were in the video game franchise.

It has not yet been confirmed how many episodes the series will consist of nor did HBO give a timeframe for when it’ll be released. It was confirmed, however, that the series would be released on HBO and would be streamable on HBO Max.