According to Comic Book, the first episode of the highly anticipated HBO Max series The Last Of Us will run for a whopping 85 minutes. The one-hour and 25-minute debut has been confirmed by the HBO Latino programming schedule on Twitter.
The Last Of Us is based on the popular PlayStation video game of the same name. Although some changes will be made to the adaptation, the majority of the plot is expected to stay true to the Naughty Dog game. The horror series will take place during a deadly infection that turns humans into flesh-eating zombies. The Mandalorian and Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal will portray Joel Miller, a known smuggler who agrees to lead a fourteen-year-old girl named Ellie across the country in hopes of developing a cure for the infection. Bella Ramsey (His Dark Materials, Game Of Thrones) will play Ellie, who is immune to the virus. Much of the story is centered around the bond between the two protagonists.
Showrunner Craig Mazin, who won two Emmy awards for his work on Chernobyl, said in an interview via Comic Book, “It’s an open-and-shut case: this is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games. [Joel and Ellie] didn’t shoot anything out of their eyeballs. They were just people. And that, in and of itself, is remarkably rare in games. The fact that they kept it so grounded, and really made you feel – I had never experienced anything like it, and I’ve been playing video games since 1977.”
With less than a month away, HBO has been very strategic in teasing the show. The official trailer was released early this month, after the first look at new poster for the show. The latest set of photos released has revealed the important backstory to Joel’s character that makes Joel into the bitter survivor that Ellie meets.
The Last Of Us will premiere at 9 p.m. Eastern time on January 15, 2023, and will stream exclusively on HBO and HBO Max. The series will run for a total of nine episodes, which will be aired on a weekly basis. The official trailer is available to watch below.