The live-action adaptation of The Last of Us will be back for a second season, the American network HBO has confirmed.
Following the overwhelmingly positive reception for the first two episodes of season one, Warner Media won’t be dropping the axe on this one.
In a press release, the network says more than 22 million people have now watched the premiere in the United States. That’s 5x higher than the number of folks who tuned in on premiere night. It’s HBO’s second most-viewed premiere ever, surpassed only by the Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon.
The second episode gained another million viewers over the premiere, with 5.7 million watching across HBO Max and on the HBO TV channels last Sunday.
The news of the renewal isn’t a surprise by any means, but given the budget and content cuts have been plentiful since the Warner and Discovery merger, nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to a huge budget show like this.
“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, Naughty Dog’ Neil Druckmann in a press release.
“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!”
While there’ll definitely be a second series of The Last of Us, the prospect of a third game in the series is somewhat less certain.
In an interview this week, Druckmann said Naughty Dog was under no pressure from parent studio Sony to make another The Last of Us game for PlayStation.
“They [Sony] have supported us every step of the way to follow our passions — meaning that just because something is successful, people think there’s all this pressure and we have to make a sequel. That’s not the case,” he said.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
