HBO Max Releases Long-Awaited & Decidedly Creepy Teaser Trailer for “The Last of Us”
At long last, we’ve got our best look yet at The Last of Us, HBO Max’s highly-anticipated adaptation of the popular video game series. The deliciously moody teaser trailer reveals creator Craig Mazin (Chernobyl)’s series, which follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they journey across a devastated American landscape in a post-apocalyptic world.
The teaser is a thing of bleak beauty, set to Hank Williams’ haunting ballad “Alone and Foresaken,” which is precisely how Joel and Bella must feel as they try to survive in a world that seems hellbent on death. The post-apocalyptic series is a massively ambitious undertaking and one of the big swings that HBO is taking in 2023, yet they’ve kept details very under wraps (including the precise release date).
The teaser at last gives us a sense of the series’ aesthetics while keeping plot specifics to a minimum. In fact, there are only a few lines spoken throughout the entire teaser, including the final words, spoken in voiceover: “Save who you can save.” There’s also a brief, legitimately terrifying look at one of the afflicted, his (or her, it’s hard to tell) face utterly transformed into a monstrous disfiguration. It happens at the 1:16 mark if you want to prepare yourself.
The series is set 20 years after civilization has fallen, with Joel trying to smuggle Ellie out of the dangerous quarantine zone. Joining Pascal and Ramsey are a great cast that includes Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna, Storm Reid, Merle Dandridge, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Ashley Johnson, Graham Greene, Anna Torv, Lamar Johnson, Keivonn Woodard, and Troy Baker. In fact, Dandridge, Baker, and Johnson all did voice work on the original video game series.
Mazin co-created the series alongside the video game’s writer and creative director, Neil Druckmann.
We’re still waiting on an exact release date for The Last of Us, but we know it arrives sometime in 2023 and will consist of 10 episodes.
Check out the chilling teaser below.
Featured image: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey. Photo courtesy HBO.
