“The Last of Us” has been renewed for season two by HBO before the third episode has even been released.
The series is based on an award-winning video game franchise of the same name. The HBO show is created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.
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The story centers on Joel (Pedro Pascal) and 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey). Joel is hired to smuggle Ellie out of a quarantine zone, but the job becomes so much more than that. They end up crossing the U.S. and relying on each other to stay alive. It’s gonna be a beautiful and heartbreaking journey.
“I’m humbled, honored, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey. The collaboration with Craig Mazin, our incredible cast & crew, and HBO exceeded my already high expectations,” said executive producer Neil Druckmann. “Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two! On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog & PlayStation, thank you!”
The first episode of “The Last of Us” has surpassed 22 million viewers, up nearly 5x from its premiere night audience. “The Last of Us” is already HBO’s second-largest debut, behind only “House of the Dragon.”
“I’m so grateful to Neil Druckmann and HBO for our partnership, and I’m even more grateful to the millions of people who have joined us on this journey,” said executive producer Craig Mazin. “The audience has given us the chance to continue, and as a fan of the characters and world Neil and Naughty Dog created, I couldn’t be more ready to dive back in.”
The second episode of the series tallied 5.7 million viewers across HBO Max and linear telecasts in the U.S. Sunday night. It saw the largest week-two audience growth for any HBO Original Drama Series in the history of the network.
The first episode of the series’ companion podcast hit #1 on the Apple Podcast US charts across all genres within 48 hours of its release. Episodes of the podcast are released along with each episode of the series. Host Troy Baker, who plays Joel in the video game, sits down with series creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann for a scene-by-scene deep dive of each episode.
New episodes of “The Last of Us” debut at 9 p.m. on Sundays. They are on HBO and available to stream on HBO Max.