TV Show

The Last of Us Was HBO’s Second Largest Debut

Published on

January 18, 2023

The Last of Us Was HBO’s Second Largest Debut

HBO and Naughty Dogs‘ highly-anticipated TV adaptation of the hit video game The Last of Us did not disappoint as it premiered on Sunday night with massive viewership numbers which all but guarantees the series will be yet another smash hit for HBO. With millions tuning in, we even saw cases of HBO Max crashing due to the high volume and demand but can you really blame them? The series put on display a picture-perfect adaptation, unlike anything we have seen before. From the almost identical backdrops down to the outfits our protagonists wore, the attention to detail was surreal through and through.

Falling short only to another massive hit from HBO, The Last of Us premiered with 4.7M views according to Deadline, falling short only to House of the Dragon which raked in 9.986M views in 2022. According to HBO, this Sunday’s viewership makes up about 20-40 of the series’ audience per episode with the remaining likely tuning in after the premiere of the episode on Sundays.

According to Deadline, CEO and chairman of HBO and HBO Max Content Casey Bloys said:

“We are thrilled to see fans of the series and game alike experience this iconic story in a new way, and we extend our gratitude to them for helping to make it a success. Congratulations to [showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who is also a co-creator of The Last of Us], and the brilliant cast and crew who worked tirelessly to bring this show to life. We look forward to fans around the world enjoying the rest of the season.”

Druckmann and Mazin added:

“Our focus was simply to make the best possible adaption of this beloved story for as big an audience as we could. We are overjoyed to see how many fans, both old and new, have welcomed The Last of Us into their homes and their hearts.”

Video game adaptations have not always landed as we have seen time and time again projects that don’t meet audience demand or fail to make earning a sequel or second season. Projects like Uncharted, Prince of Persia, and Assassin’s Creed all failed to earn for the studios’ with the most notable video game adaptation being Netflix‘s The Witcher which to be fair considers the novels as its source material but even with that, Henry Cavill‘s departure from the series might have sealed the fate for the series moving forward.

It is refreshing to see a true adaptation that relies on the source material that brought the IP to this level of notoriety rather than looking to divert from the source material.