Where 2023 is concerned, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a series as highly anticipated as HBO’s The Last of Us. The upcoming series based on the popular Sony video game franchise is hot off a big weekend at CCXP. With just over a month until the adaptation’s premiere, The Last of Us has released another poster giving us a new look at our two main leads Joel and Ellie, played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.
The new poster simply has Joel and Ellie in front of a Cordyceps infected wall. Joel is noticeably looking away while Ellie is looking straight at the audience. It’s very reminiscent of The Last of Us Remastered game cover that was released in 2014 which saw the pair of reluctant survivors in a similar position. The tag line for the poster is fittingly the Firefly motto, “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” The trailer shown at CCXP promises that this will be a video game adaptation like we have never seen before. Each frame of that well crafted trailer looks ripped straight out of the game, with a few mysterious moments to keep long time fans of the franchise on their toes. Pascal just seems on top of the world right now, but you couldn’t ask for a more perfect Joel than him, and his chemistry with Ramsey’s Ellie appears to be flawless.
When The Last of Us released in 2013, it changed the gaming industry forever. It was a horror game with incredibly brilliant sequences of terror, but it backed that up with one of the richest character-driven stories ever told. The story of Joel and Ellie was all things intimately dark, emotional, and heartfelt. Their road trip from hell wasn’t just another zombie game, it was a love letter to storytelling and what makes us human in the bleakest of times. Whether it was the jaw-dropping tear-jerking first ten minutes, Gustavo Santaolalla’s riveting musical score, or the award-winning performances from Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker (who both have roles in this series), The Last of Us is still as brilliant today as it was when it debuted almost a decade ago. With the game's director Neil Druckmann working with Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin on the series, the sky’s the limit on how amazing this adaptation can be.
The Last of Us premieres on HBO January 15, 2023. Its first season will consist of nine episodes. Along with Pascal, Ramsey, Baker, and Johnson, the horror series also stars Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Nick Offerman, Storm Reid, Merle Dandridge, Lamar Johnson, and Murray Bartlett. While we wait to avoid Clickers around every dark corner come January, you can view the new poster and the previously released CCXP trailer down below.
