At lengthy final, The Last of Us has debuted to vital acclaim with critics and audiences alike loving it. The sequence wasted no time in any respect introducing the an infection on the root of the sequence, with John Hannah’s Dr. Neuman explaining the potential menace of fungi ought to the planetary temperature elevate considerably. The opening was intriguing and set the tempo with a bit of early rationalization so the remainder of the episode may take off operating—solely that wasn’t the primary thought they got here up with.
In truth, the opening sequence was almost a visit again to the times of biology class with a clip of a cordyceps infecting a gaggle of ants, similar to what Dr. Neuman defined in his harrowing warning.
“I pitched [the cold open] twice,” Craig Mazin mentioned within the first episode of HBO’s supplemental The Last of Us podcast. “The first time I pitched it, [to co-showrunner Neil Druckmann] was like ‘ehh’ – or we can do the video. It’s Planet Earth, you can watch this beautiful demonstration of how cordyceps works(opens in new tab), how it takes over an ant. It tells you everything you need to know. What we decided to do was make our own video like that.”
Mazin received again to the drafting board and shortly thought of one other thought.
“It was a little boring to watch. It was a little bit like we’re in social studies class,” the author continued. “I had written this thing early as if I had found a transcript of an old Dick Cavett from 1969. I remember showing it to Neil and he was like, ‘This is a little weird.'”
Finally, the author discovered one thing each he and Druckmann favored. “We’re about 3-4 weeks away from wrapping… and I am not thrilled with this opening,” Mazin concluded. “I sent it to Neil again and this time he was like ‘ooh!'”
For extra Last of Us content material, try ComicBook and Entertainment Tonight’s new podcast: The Last of Pods. The podcast will embrace breakdowns of every episode, interviews with particular company from the present, and extra. The Last of Us airs on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. Eastern each Sunday with The Last of Pods debuting instantly following every present.
Discussion about this post