For millions of Bloater-fearing gamers, HBO’s most-anticipated upcoming series isn’t the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, or The Wire creator David Simon’s return to Baltimore, We Own This City — it’s The Last of Us.
The 2013 video game (and its polarizing-but-brilliant sequel, 2020’s The Last of Us Part II) is getting an expensive adaptation starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. The first image from the series looked exactly like the game, and in an interview with British GQ, Pascal sounds optimistic that fans will appreciate the show’s vision.
“There’s a very, very creative way of honoring what’s important and also preserving what is iconic to the experience of the video game, and also [to include] things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect,” he said. “And then directions that you would expect it to go, and it might not… they’re doing some really smart things, is all I can say.”
Pascal also compared HBO’s The Last of Us to The Mandalorian, where he plays Baby Yoda’s bounty hunter father figure, Din Djarin.
“It’s similar to the way Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni treat The Mandalorian, in how [creator Craig Mazin and The Last of Us director Neil Druckmann] are treating The Last of Us. It’s in good hands because they love it so much. Well, clearly Neil created the video game, but Craig loves it so much. So it really is made for the people that love it. And there’s some very intense storytelling for people who might be less familiar.”
Before long (2023), everyone will know the horror of the Rat King. I can’t wait.
(Via British GQ)