While HBO had confirmed that it had renewed The Last of Us for a third season all the way back in April, the TV channel has still been quite secretive about when it will actually air. In an interview with Variety, HBO and Max content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys has said that the company is aiming for a 2027 premiere for the third season of The Last of Us.
However, Bloys was still coy about offering more specifics about the premiere date for the third season. “The series is definitely planned for 2027,” he said. “Craig [Mazin] is still working it out whether it will be two more seasons or one more long season. It hasn’t been decided yet, and I’m following Craig’s lead on that.”
When asked about his thoughts about Neil Druckmann stepping away as showrunner to focus on Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic, Bloys spoke about enjoying having worked with him. He also brought up the fact that, while Druckmann had to focus his attention on another project, he had left the team with “a good blueprint” for the show.
“Obviously it was great to have Neil involved in the beginning,” said Bloys. “The whole reason that I wanted to do Last of Us is after Chernobyl, I said to Craig, ‘what do you want to do next?’ And Last of Us was what he wanted to do. That’s what was most important to me, Craig’s creative excitement about the show. It was fantastic to have Neil involved.”
“A lot of people don’t realize that Neil has a full time job creating video games and running Naughty Dog. It’s a really big job that he’s got. So I understand why he needs to focus on that. But I believe he’s given us a good blueprint with the show. And obviously Craig is a pro, so I think we’ll be in excellent shape. I’m not worried at all.”
The Last of Us wrapped up its second season a couple of months ago. While the first season saw quite a bit of critical acclaim and popularity, the second season was seemingly not as lucky. According to a report from May, the second season finale drew only roughly half of the viewers of the first season’s finale. In terms of raw numbers, the finale drew in 3.7 million across all platforms, compared to the 8.2 million viewers of the first season finale.
However, when the second season first came out, it was getting more viewers than its predecessors. A report from April indicated that more than 5.3 million viewers had tuned in for the season 2 premiere of The Last of Us across all platforms in the US. Compared to season 1’s premiere, which clocked in at 4.7 million viewers, season 2 saw a roughly 10 percent increase.
The report had also indicated that viewership for the first season of The Last of Us had gone up in the week leading up to the second season premiere by around 150 percent.
