We might be waiting a while for more of HBO’s The Last of Us. HBO announced in January that a second season of the excellent adaptation was in the works, and on Thursday, HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys said that the season will enter production in early 2024, according to Variety.
Bloys said that production was delayed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which is still going on). The show also wasn’t on HBO’s slate for 2024, Variety says, meaning it might not come out until 2025 at the earliest.
That said, there has already been some preparation done for the new season. “We’ve outlined all of season 2 and we’re ready to go as soon as the strike ends,” show co-creator Neil Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published in September. And showrunner Craig Mazin separately told Entertainment Weekly that he submitted a script for the season’s first episode right before the WGA strike started.
Bloys revealed a few other details about HBO’s content lineup on Thursday. House of the Dragon’s second season will come out in “early summer” of 2024, Variety reports, and a trailer for the season was shown to reporters in attendance at the event. And the third season of The White Lotus and It spinoff Welcome to Derry are now scheduled for 2025, according to Deadline.
Bloys also responded to Rolling Stone’s Wednesday report that detailed how a staffer was directed to troll critics online on X, formerly Twitter. “Now, when I take issue with something in a review or take issue with something I see, I DM many of you and many of you are gracious enough to engage with me in a back and forth,” Deadline reports. It’s “probably a much healthier way to go about this.”
