Pedro Pascal’s The Last Of Us Series Casts Riley From Left Behind
Playstation and Naughty Dog's The Last Of Us is a video game series with an excellent storyline begging to be made into a television series.
This article is more than 2 years old
Playstation and Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us is a video game series with an excellent storyline begging to be made into a television series. Fortunately, Pedro Pascal is working on making that happen right now, as he is filming the series where he will play Joel alongside Bella Ramsey as Ellie. One question around the project has been whether it will adapt solely the first game or include material from the sequel, or possibly even Left Behind, the DLC prequel. Now, a new casting announcement for the role of Riley hints that Left Behind will be included in the show.
Actress Storm Reid has just been cast as Riley for The Last Of Us. While the character was mentioned in the first game, she was only shown in Left Behind. In the games, Pedro Pascal’s Joel unites with Bella Ramsey’s Ellie in a post-apocalyptic world. A deadly virus has destroyed modern civilization. People live in quarantine zones. After Joel finds Ellie, they head out on a dangerous mission to deliver her to an organization searching for a cure. Before Joel finds Ellie, she is with her close friend, Riley. In The Last Of Us: Left Behind, Ellie and Riley are shown living in post-apocalyptic Boston together. The actress playing Riley, Storm Reid, has previously starred in A Wrinkle In Time and HBO Max’s Euphoria alongside Zendaya.
Riley and Ellie are sometimes seen smiling and being teenage girls together, but living in a post-apocalyptic world, they’re often seen looking pretty beat up. The photo below shows the pair of friends in The Last Of Us: Left Behind, where Ellie’s life before Joel is better explored.
As previously mentioned, fans have been waiting for The Last Of Us for a very long time. The creator of the game, Neil Druckmann, has teamed up with writer Craig Mazin for the project. Mazin is a screenwriter known for Chernobyl and Scriptnotes, a podcast he runs with John August. He occasionally mentions The Last Of Us on the show and how hard they’re working to get the show ready for fans. In the summer of 2021, he confirmed to GameRant that the series will have ten episodes when it’s ready for streaming on HBO Max.
When will The Last Of Us finally premiere? Unfortunately, the streaming service has yet to make an official announcement. The series took a brief break for filming during the holiday season, but the cast is returning to Canada and resuming production, which is expected to continue through the summer of 2022. That time frame has led many to wonder if the show may not hit streaming until 2023.
However, a few days ago, actress Bella Ramsey made a post to her Instagram stories that got fans talking. Her story mentioned the show and slipped in that it would premiere in 2022. Was that a slip from the young actress? Is she likely to actually know the confirmed release date for The Last Of Us? Until HBO Max confirms the date, it’s better to take that information with a grain of salt. It’s hardly concrete. While production seems to be moving along and there’s reason to hope that 2022 may be the year, it seems unlikely that an official release date will be announced before the summer.
