Latest news with #NeilDruckmann
Geek Feed
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Feed
Confirmed: Kaitlyn Dever is the Lead of The Last of Us Season 3
A lot of fans were disappointed that Kaitlyn Dever was too old to play Ellie when The Last of Us series was announced, but they did manage to bring her to the show in the form of Abby—Ellie's rival. Now with Season 2 ended, and fans looking forward to Season 3, series co-creator Neil Druckmann has confirmed that Dever will actually be the lead for the next season of The Last of Us . He confirms it at an Emmys FYC event: Kaitlyn Dever reacts to being officially confirmed by Neil Druckmann as the lead in #TheLastOfUs Season 3 — The Last of Us News (@TheLastofUsNews) June 10, 2025 This should come as no surprise to people who have played The Last of Us Part II . After all, one of the biggest twists in the game is finding out that you have to play the entirety of the Seattle timeline from Abby's perspective. Admittedly, game fans were worried that the series won't be able to milk the same kind of emotional reaction from players like the game did, but so far, I think the changes that have been done were for the better, including the reveal of Ellie and Joel's last talk and Abby's reason for going after Joel. Unsurprisingly, there are already a lot of fans that have been bashing the second season for not meeting expectations, but hopefully Druckmann and co-showrunner Craig Mazin stick true to where they want to go because I wasn't expecting the fandom to play nice—particularly with this very divisive story. I just hope we don't have to wait another two years to finally see what Abby's Seattle story is going to be like. No release date has been set for The Last of Us Season 3.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Last of Us' Creators Confirm Kaitlyn Dever-Led Season 3: 'I Was Sure They Wouldn't Let Us Do This'
[This story contains major spoilers from season two of .] While celebrating the second season of The Last of Us at an Emmys FYC event on Tuesday, co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann offered up a few details about what's in store for season three. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Materialists' Review: Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal Bring Affecting Soulfulness to Celine Song's Perceptive Romantic Drama 'The Last of Us' Co-Creator Craig Mazin Dissects That Feared Final Moment of Season Two Ariana Grande, Pedro Pascal, Sabrina Carpenter Sign Open Letter Supporting Federal Funding for LGBTQ Youth Suicide Prevention The duo took part in two panels at the event, the first alongside cinematographer Ksenia Sereda, costume designer Ann Foley, editor Timothy Good, composer David Fleming, production designer Don Macaulay and visual effects supervisor Alex Wang. During that conversation, Mazin mused how they build these extensive, meticulous sets and 'we tend to light things on fire, smash them, tear them down' — something they may change for season three. 'It's more of a water season than a fire season,' Druckmann revealed, as Mazin confirmed, 'It's a wetter season than a hotter season.' Later, following a screening of the season's second episode, Mazin and Druckmann returned with stars Bella Ramsey, Isabela Merced, Gabriel Luna and Young Mazino, with Kaitlyn Dever appearing virtually as she's working on another project in Australia. Rob McElhenney, who repeatedly declared The Last of Us 'my favorite show on television,' moderated the conversation. Druckmann discussed how he'd been involved in several failed attempts to adapt his video game and 'I think it was good to go on that journey to end up at HBO, end up at a place that leaned into those controversial decisions, I guess,' like killing off Pedro Pascal's character Joel early in the second season. 'But the decisions are just what the story required, and even now, it's like I can't believe that they let us structure the series in this way. Meaning like we just ended season two, and season three is going to be starring — spoiler alert — Kaitlyn.' 'What?!' Dever jokingly reacted, as McElhenney teased, 'Had you closed your deal yet? You just got a ton of leverage.' Druckmann continued, 'I was sure that they wouldn't let us do this when we started adapting this, but they've leaned into what makes, I believe, the story special. And allowed us not only the time but the creative freedom to be able to take these swings, and I think the audience really appreciates that.' Dever joined the second season as Abby, a divisive character in the video games who brutally murders Pascal's beloved character. It had been speculated that the third season would shift to tell Abby's story, but had not yet been explicitly confirmed. The actress said taking part in the conversation, even remotely, 'makes me so happy to be a part of this family and to get to look forward to the journey we have ahead too.' Dever added that 'the controversy surrounding Abby was never really a concern for me, just given my first meeting with Craig and Neil and how wonderful they are and how talented they are. Getting on set, I've never felt so carried on a set in my life.' As McElhenney jokingly berated Dever for killing Pascal — 'You killed America's Sweetheart! You brutally murdered America's Sweetheart with a golf club' — Mazin explained the decision, noting, 'To invest all this time and then go away for a long time and then come back, it's even more dangerous to do what we did, and that's why I thought it should be done, because it doesn't happen enough.' 'I think plot armor is a real problem and in a show where we try and keep things as grounded as possible, and we want people to feel in real danger, then yes, sometimes the people that we can't imagine dying die,' he continued. 'Because, for me, this is not a show about revenge, it's a show about grief. Well, how are we supposed to grieve if nobody we truly, truly are invested in dies?' Read THR's The Last of Us season two coverage. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Last of Us' Creator on Pedro Pascal's Return Making You Cry for an Hour
Note: This episode contains spoilers for season two episode six. Pedro Pascal's return to HBO's The Last of Us in a flashback-filled episode packed an emotional wallop, filling in several blanks in Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) tumultuous relationship. Starting with a look at Joel's abused childhood, a series of sequences followed, set during Ellie's birthdays — since the duo settled in Jackson — and showing what went down on the porch the night before Joel's murder. More from The Hollywood Reporter Alexander Skarsgard Kisses Pedro Pascal on Cheek During Ravenous Standing Ovation for 'Pillion' Inside The Hollywood Reporter's Star-Studded 'Die, My Love' Cannes Premiere Party With Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson and Surprise Guests Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Ari Aster's 'Eddington' Cast on What the Film Says About America: "We're on a Dangerous Road" The scenes throw all sorts of complex lighting into previous events, but perhaps most simply, they remind the audience of Joel's extraordinary level of caring for Ellie — showing that the two had started down the road of reconciliation before Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) changed their fates forever. Below, Neil Druckmann — who co-wrote the PlayStation game The Last of Us Part II and serves as a showrunner on The Last of Us, directing this week's episode — discusses some of the hour's pivotal moments and tangled moral and emotional quagmires. This might be one of those rare episodes of TV where people cry repeatedly through the hour, not just in one key moment. Well, I'm glad it worked for you. Just to see Pedro and Bella one more time; to see their happiest they've ever been, maybe the saddest they've been with each other, and the angriest they've ever been. And it was such a joy to explore all those nuances along the way. I'm extremely proud of how it turned out, and I was really nervous. That porch scene, especially, means so much to myself, to my co-writers on this episode, Craig [Mazin] and Haley [Gross], and to everyone that worked on the game and the show. But specifically, when I was working on this episode, I had two people on the front of my mind, which were Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, who originally played these characters in the game. They gave such brilliant performances for very similar scenes that I wanted to honor what they've done, because they helped create those characters. I just re-watched the game version of scene (watch it below). For this, I was particularly caught by Ellie asking Joel those questions that had been on her mind for so long, and the choice to just have Joel just be silent and nod. In the game, Ellie asked those questions at a different point. Here we took several flashback scenes and collapsed them into the one on the porch. So Ellie has to understand what Joel has done, get angry at him, and then move towards forgiveness — all within one scene. I thought Bella gave a beautiful performance. I can't imagine how difficult that would I remember the day of shooting, I pulled Pedro and Bella aside and mentioned how important the scene is and how powerful it can be, and how important it is for their characters. Specifically, 'This is your last conversation with each other. You've been withholding all this stuff, all these questions, so hold nothing back.' If you watch Bella's Ellie this season, she wears more of a mask than Ashley's Ellie in the game. Here, the masks are fully off. And now Joel knows that she knows, and the last gift he can give her is to give her the truth. And since they were 'yes or no' questions, it felt like he wouldn't even need to say it, he could just nod or shake his head. One thing that fascinates to me about this season is the structure, which is obviously taken from the game, as well, where you lose Joel, and then have these flashbacks and each one changes how you view their relationship and his death, though they're much more spaced out. Yeah, let me talk to you about our thought process. You're right that in the game, these scenes are spaced out, sometimes hours apart. If we spaced out these scenes and planted them throughout the season, I believe they wouldn't land as powerfully because they're short moments and work better when they're next to each other and you can just see the comparison — it's like their relationship is slowly deteriorating. If we put one in an episode, and then you have to wait a week to see the next, you have to remember what the last one was, and then wait another week again. I think the show would start feeling like it has a template — 'What's the Joel flashback this week?'Also it was important that the audience, like the characters, miss Joel. So we would kill him early in the season, we decided not to show him back until close to the end of the season. Then it became a question of where should it land. It felt appropriate to land after Ellie has just committed the darkest, most violent act she's ever committed in her life — torturing an unarmed woman to try to get information about where Joel's killer is hiding. There's a contrast of 'look how far this character has come.' They're almost unrecognizable in that scene. Here's our reminder of who they were, and what they're fighting for — the memory of this person. That makes a lot of sense. I did wonder if there was a part of you that would have been tempted to hold the porch moment to the series finale, and also wondered if the pragmatic issue of not having Pascal signed beyond season two might have factored into that. No, but let's assume we could shoot it and hold it and reveal it later. Craig brought this up to me and I bought into it immediately: He [pointed out] that when you buy the game, you have the entire story. You could play for the whole thing in two days. We have to take into account that the story is being delivered week by week, season by season, with more story coming potentially years later. There would be a high risk of the porch scene not landing if he held onto it. When I was looking at the porch scene, one of the comments read: 'Ellie's vengeance wasn't just about killing the people who took Joel from her, but about taking revenge on them for taking away her chance at forgiving him.' Is that true, do you think? I agree with that interpretation, because we get to see that Joel hurt Ellie maybe the worst way possible — by taking the choice away from her to honor the people that died on her journey to be delivered to the Fireflies. Ellie's so angry, and she means it when she says, 'I don't know if I could ever forgive you for that, but I would like to try.' She wanted to move towards that forgiveness, because I think she understood that — as much as Joel hurt her — his motivation was unconditional love, and she shares that unconditional love for him. Now she can never get the chance. Oddly enough, the simplistic reaction I had to watching the scene was relief — 'Oh, they weren't in quite as bad of a place, relationship wise, when he died as we thought.' There is something oddly reassuring about that. It's bittersweet because he was finally honest with her and they confessed their love to each other on in that scene, but they never moved back to when we saw them at their happiest at that Space Museum. Speaking of which, the rocket ship scene was one of my favorite cutscenes from the game. What did that scene mean to you? I've always liked that Ellie is fascinated with our world, that things we take for granted are like fantasy to her. And by the way, that quality of Ellie came from Ashley Johnson. She loved the idea of wanting to be an astronaut. So I wrote that to make Ellie more like her and now it has remained all the way through for another actor to reinterpret it. To me, it speaks to how children can just tap into their imagination and picture they are somewhere else. Ellie wants something that she could never have in this world, and Joel kind of gives it to her. Joel is amazing in this episode as the World's Greatest Apocalypse Dad that it also caused me to feel some annoyance at Ellie — like, 'How can you not appreciate this man more than you do?' Though I also understand that she's at an age where you naturally pull away from your parents and if there aren't things to be correctly mad about, you'll find reasons anyway. And, obviously, he was not perfect. There are several big lies my parents have told to me that only now, in my forties, I'm able to forgive and move past because I see their motivations were in the right place. And now, as a dad myself, I had this feeling of like, 'I know how to raise my kids better than my parents. I'm always going to be completely honest.' And there was a moment in time where I was too honest with my daughter when she was too young and it was about something violent and dark, and she was traumatized by it. It speaks to the complexity of being a parent and how difficult it is — even when you're doing the right thing, you might be causing your kids to hate you. That's the choice of the job. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise 'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained
Geek Tyrant
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Neill Druckmann Won't Make THE LAST OF US PART III Without the Right Idea — GeekTyrant
The Last of Us franchise has kind of become a cultural landmark. The franchise, launched first as a game in 2013 by Naughty Dog, has become known for emotionally devastating storytelling, nuanced characters, and brutal world-building. But with The Last of Us Part II having tied up many of its loose ends, fans have one burning question… will there ever be a The Last of Us Part III ? Neil Druckmann, co-creator and director of the franchise, recently addressed the possibility of a third video game on the Sacred Symbols podcast. While he didn't confirm a third game is in the works, he didn't shut the door either. He said: 'So, if we were ever to come back to it, I want to make sure it's a story worthy of The Last of Us. I love that world, I love these characters. With the right opportunity, with the right idea — yeah, I would totally jump at it." Of course it has to be a worthy story. It's easy to understand why he's cautious. Between the games and the show, the story has already hit some powerfully resonant notes. In the first game (and Season 1 of the series), we followed Joel and Ellie across a ravaged America, culminating in Joel's infamous decision to rescue Ellie from the Fireflies by force, killing the only surgeon who might've saved the world. The Last of Us Part II (now adapted across Seasons 2 and 3 of the show) picks up five years later, only to tear everything apart. Joel's violent past catches up with him, Ellie sets off on a revenge journey that spirals into tragedy, and by the end, we get something that felt like the end. Which makes Druckmann's restraint refreshing. The creative temptation to revisit beloved characters is strong, especially when there's a devoted audience already in place. But Druckmann's hesitation suggests he's not interested in retreading emotional beats or squeezing more out of a story that already said what it needed to. They could always tell a whole new story set in that world with different characters in a different location. That could be interesting. What would you like to see from the franchise in the future?
News.com.au
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Hit streaming show's creator announces massive change
WARNING: The Last Of Us spoilers ahead. The creators of the hit series The Last Of Us have confirmed that a huge change is in the works for season three, as the story shifts focus to a character who has had little screen time until now. The post-apocalyptic series, adapted from the hugely popular video game of the same name, debuted in 2023 as a two-hander between stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, playing a surrogate. But – and again, spoiler alert – the second episode of season two offered up a massive shock (at least for viewers not familiar with the game), as Pascal's character Joel met a grisly end on-screen, leaving Ramsey's character Ellie to go it alone. Ellie spent the rest of the season searching for Joel's killer, Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever. Season two ended on a cliffhanger as Ellie finally found Abby, the screen fading to black during a violent shootout. But then, the very last scene of the season seemed to suggest we won't be seeing much of Ellie in season three, regardless of whether she lives or dies: A flashback to Abby's character, several days earlier, as if to mark that the story will continue next season told through her perspective. At an Emmys-hosted event to mark the end of the show's second season this week, The Last Of Us co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann opened up about the controversy surrounding Joel's death and hinted at what was still to come in the series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Druckmann said there had already been several failed attempts to adapt the video game for the screen: 'I think it was good to go on that journey to end up at HBO, end up at a place that leaned into those controversial decisions, I guess,' he said, referring to Pascal's character's brutal on-screen death. 'But the decisions are just what the story required, and even now, it's like I can't believe that they let us structure the series in this way. Meaning like we just ended season two, and season three is going to be starring — spoiler alert — Kaitlyn.' That information appeared to be news to even actress Kaitlyn Dever herself, who was dialled in to the event remotely and reacted with joy and surprise at the news (watch her reaction in the video above). Now we have confirmation that The Last Of Us season three will focus on Abby instead of Ellie, the next big question is when exactly it will air – or rather, how long we have to wait. There was a gap of more than two years between the show's initial, nine-episode season and its even shorter seven-episode second season. GamesRadar+ reports that writing has not yet begun on season three, and fans can expect a similar two-year wait to see more of the show sometime in 2027.
