Short of the final season of awards and critical darling “Succession,” HBO’s first season of “The Last Of Us” snagged 24 Emmy nominations yesterday – the second-highest total nominations of any show this past year.
The first season has been unanimously well-received and is based on the even more critically acclaimed original 2013 video game, which remains one of the most universally praised video games ever.
The second game, however, is far more divisive – drawing both raves and hate from various corners even as it won countless awards and topped many Game of Year lists. It blatantly defies audience expectations as it goes down a much darker, more profound, almost unrelentingly bleak rabbit hole twice as long as its predecessor.
With the second season set to adapt a portion of that game but also set to make its own creative choices at points, showrunner Craig Mazin tells EW he expects the HBO show’s second season will similarly shock and polarize the audience:
“I’m never gonna say there are things that are gonna happen in the show that happened in the game. You never know what we’re gonna do.
But I will say that it is the adventure; the journey is the point. There are things that will shock people, things that were in the game, things that were not in the game, and that’s okay.
As long as they’re purposeful, they’re not there to just simply shock. We are not interested in creating social media fear. We just want to tell the story the way we think it should be told.”
Mazin also anticipates backlash even before the new season begins filming – specifically over future casting choices in much the same way that Bella Ramsay’s casting as Ellie drew backlash:
“Will there be furor? Yeah, probably. I mean, there usually is, starting even with casting. We knew they were the exact right person to cast, and they had to go through quite a few months of people being awful on social media until they saw what we saw.
That, to me, is the point. We don’t operate to either make people happy on social media or avoid making them upset. We just do what we think is right, and we hope that people come along for the ride and enjoy it.”
Casting is something Mazin and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann certainly got very right with the show’s first season, with the show up for no less than nine acting nominations, including a record-setting guest star nomination for Keivonn Montreal Woodard, who is just ten years old.
Mazin adds the plan for the second season is to follow the same process they did with the first:
“It is ultimately the only process I really know and understand as somebody that writes things and directs and produces. So I don’t really have much of a choice, but it is nice to know that at least this first go around, doing it the way I do it worked.
I have great partners. We are all very humble with each other. Objections are always carefully considered. Nobody in our group operates out of ego or being defensive. We just try to make things better all the time, and we take care of each other.
I think as long as we keep doing that, and we have more incredible source material to work with, we’re gonna continue to adapt the way we do, which is to surprise people that have played the game. But also, I don’t think anybody who has played the game is gonna watch a second season and go, ‘Wait, what is this?'”
Mazin also responded to a report from the other day regarding his involvement in the “Borderlands” movie at Lionsgate. Mazin was officially attached as the film’s writer back when it was in production over two years ago.
Since then, the project has undergone at least two sets of reshoots, with multiple writers having come on board. A listing the other day indicated Mazin had removed his name from the project and appeared to be using the pseudonym Joe Crombie.
Mazin is now publicly denying that the pen name is his, telling Variety he’s not a credited writer on the film, so he “cannot claim any kind of authorship of ‘Borderlands,’ much less ‘co-writing'”. He adds he saw the report the other day and calls it false, saying he did not use a pseudonym, and if it is a pseudonym, then “all I can say is… it’s not mine.”
“The Last of Us” Season 2 is expected to begin filming in Vancouver sometime early next year ahead of a 2025 airing.
