HBO has revealed a brand-new poster for their upcoming adaptation of the beloved PlayStation video game The Last of Us just a few months ahead of its January release. This new poster takes clear inspiration from the original game's cover art and features the duo of Joel and Ellie, played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, respectively, front and center.
The new poster was revealed on the official The Last of Us HBO series Twitter page and sees Joel and Ellie heading towards a flooded highway with skyscrapers in the distance. Standing atop flipped-over cars that are covered in foliage, not unlike the giant buildings on the horizon and everything else in this post-apocalyptic world. The two characters are shown turning back to face the camera. The phrase "When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light" is written along the bottom of the poster, a reference to the mantra of the Fireflies, a militia faction that Joel and Ellie are trying to reach in Utah. From the character's stance of looking back at the camera and the flooded highway, the poster takes cues from the original box art for the 2013 title that saw Joel and Ellie standing in the middle of a flooded road in a city, the tall buildings on either side of them rather than in the distance, both looking back at the camera brandishing weapons.
Based on Naughty Dog’s video game of the same name, The Last of Us takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the world has been overrun by a mutant outbreak of the Cordyceps fungus, which turns people into fungal zombie-like creatures known as Clickers. The story follows Joel, a weathered, hardened, and untrusting survivor with his trauma revolving around loss tasked with escorting a teenage girl named Ellie, who is immune to the virus, to a hospital run by the Fireflies in order to hopefully develop a vaccine. The mission takes the two on a cross-country journey as they meet new characters and factions and slowly learn to trust and care for each other, with Joel starting to see Ellie as the daughter he lost during the original outbreak.
Who Else Is Working On The Last of Us Adaptation?
Along with Pascal and Ramsey, the cast for HBO's The Last of Us features an all-star cast that includes Anna Torv as Tess, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, Nico Parker as Sarah, Nick Offerman as Bill, Melanie Lynskey as Kathleen, Murray Bartlett as Frank, Merle Dandridge as Marlene, Storm Reid as Riley, Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, Lamar Johnson as Henry, Keivonn Woodard as Sam, Graham Greene as Marlon, and Elaine Miles as Florence, among others.
The series will include nine episodes and is being co-written by Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin and the original game's director, Neil Druckmann. The original game is beloved by fans for telling a gripping story and delving deep into the relationship of its two leads, so fans are excited to see this translated into live-action. The Last of Us is just one of the many adaptation projects that Sony and PlayStation have been working on, with the upcoming series being part of a strategy revealed by the company back in May 2021 that included them making at least 10 adaptations of their games for TV and film. This would include the likes of the 2022 film adaptation of fellow Naughty Dog franchise Uncharted starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg as well as other upcoming projects like a Ghost of Tsushima film by John Wick director Chad Stahelski and a Twisted Metal series at Peacock. More projects are yet to be announced.
The Last of Us premieres on January 15 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. You can check out the new poster for the upcoming adaptation down below.
