Warning: Spoilers for “The Last of Us” below.
“The Last of Us” wrapped up its first season just over a week ago, and it could be quite some time before HBO blesses us with a second season, according to the show’s star Bella Ramsey.
“It will be a while,” Ramsey said of Season 2 on “The Jonathan Ross Show” during Saturday’s episode, according to The Independent. “I think we’ll probably shoot at the end of this year, beginning of next. So it’ll probably be at the end of 2024, early 2025.”
In the post-apocalyptic drama series based on the 2013 survival game, Ramsey plays Ellie, a teenage girl who discovers she’s immune to a mutated Cordyceps fungus that morphs people into zombie-like “infected.” The disease wipes out much of the earth’s population, and Bella finds herself the key to restoring humanity.
At the end of January, HBO announced that the drama series had been renewed for a second season amid the show’s massive success.
Ramsey’s co-star Pedro Pascal previously offered up a vague timeline for Season 2, indicating that it could begin filming this year.
“In the year 2023? Oh, what season are we in now? We’re getting into spring,” Pascal told Collider in February. “Yes, there is a chance. Yes.”
Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Though details about Season 2 are still under wraps, creators have confirmed the forthcoming season will follow the events from “The Last of Us Part II,” the sequel to the video game the dystopian drama is based on.
“I don’t think there’s much need to fill in the gaps,” Ramsey told GQ, adding that the new season will “most likely” follow the storyline of the games again.
“The Last of Us” series’ co-creator Neil Druckmann ― who also co-created the video game ― told British GQ that the events of Part II will be covered by “more than one season.”
Season 1 recently ended after nine emotional weeks. Series co-creator Craig Mazin revealed he and the director, Ali Abbasi, had considered a different ending between Joel (Pascal) and Ellie than the one they settled on.
“[Abbasi] had this thought of just playing out this slightly longer, sadder version where Ellie says, ‘okay,’ and then she turns and walks away. And Joel looks after her. We see the two of them walking, not really together but apart, down towards Jackson. It lingers and then fades. There was something beautiful about it,” Mazin told British GQ of the ending they had contemplated.
Season 1 of “The Last of Us” is streaming on HBO Max.