‘Four seems like a good number’: ‘The Last of Us’ showrunner teases the show’s future

To call Max’s television series The Last of Us a runaway success would be a drastic undersell; not only did showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann manage capture the heart-wrenching magic that gamers fell in love with back in 2013 in nine episodes of television, but they scored a whopping 24 Emmy nominations in the process. And with a second season having long since been greenlit, we doubt that Max will be letting go of this boon anytime soon.

The show stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, a hardened smuggler living in a post-apocalyptic America, and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, a teenager who’s immune to the zombifying virus that caused the aforementioned apocalypse, as they journey across the country in hopes of turning Ellie’s immunity into a cure.

The first season covered the entirety of the video game of the same name that it’s adapted from – including the Left Behind DLC – so it was never any big mystery that the second season would adapt The Last of Us: Part II, after which Mazin and company could tie the show up in a bow and call it a wrap, right?

Well, maybe not. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mazin revealed that The Last of Us team has every intention of releasing somewhere in the ballpark of four seasons’ worth episodes, while also being clear on the fact that that might not necessarily mean 36 episodes in total.

It can end up being three or five. But four seems like a good number. Some seasons, because of the story we’re telling, will need fewer episodes and some will need more. The best news is the audience wants more. We will not indulge a desire for more simply to make them happier when they hear how many episodes are announced… But when all is said and done, I think the wisdom of how we lay it out will hopefully be clear.

So, unless The Last of Us intends to stretch out the story of Part II over the course of multiple seasons, we could very well be in for an entirely original story set in The Last of Us universe. Exactly how that would pan out without an already critically-acclaimed narrative to reference is anyone’s guess, but with Mazin’s showrunning partner Druckmann — who co-created the original games in the first place — firmly in the creative mix, we’d happily put our trust in such a development.

The Last of Us is available to stream on Max.