“We just didn’t have the money”: The Last of Us creators Claim HBO Didn’t Allocate Enough Money for One Crucial Scene Despite a $15M Budget For Every Episode
This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us
The second episode of The Last of Us has garnered colossal success among audiences and critics for its wonderful adaptation of the source material. The creators of the show have also been pretty vocal about their thoughts regarding the show and have provided insight into their initial plans.
The makers of the show have been able to convey the atmosphere from Naughty Dog’s magnum opus to the live-action version. But the creators revealed that initially they had other plans for Episode 2 opening but had to eventually scrap them due to budget issues.
The Last of Us creators revealed that they couldn’t include a crucial scene due to budget issues
The Last of Us could be among the most expensive HBO shows, considering its reported budget of $15 million per episode, but even with such a colossal budget, the creators weren’t able to include a crucial scene that would have explored the situation of the whole world after the pandemic.
The creators revealed that initially, they had the idea to open the second episode by portraying the condition of people in different parts of the world after the outbreak. This would have included a worldwide montage of the infected around the globe. In the HBO Max’s The Last of Us podcast, Craig Mazin revealed that,
“We had this plan for this montage where we saw all these places in the world and what had happened to them, and we just didn’t have the money for it. But we thought it would be really interesting to see where it all begins.”
As the creators couldn’t able to emphasize the global factor of the outbreak and eventually added the scene of Jakarta, Indonesia. And the creators admitted that including the scene of Jakarta as the opening of episode 2 was a gamble that they were ready to play.
Craig Mazin admits that the Jakarta scene was a gamble
While talking about the opening scene in Jakarta, Indonesia, Craig Mazin admitted that starting the episode in Jakarta in the past could have led to some confusion among the audience. But the creators were adamant about taking the risk and it eventually paid off.
The creators explained that the TV show medium helped them with the inclusion of this scene, as they can deviate the storytelling from movies and games because of the episodic manner. He went on to explain that the TV show format allowed them to tell the story through new lenses because of its episodic manner and allowed them to sprinkle a bit of the origin of the outbreak while visualizing that the infection isn’t only limited to America.
Even though the worldwide montage on the effect of Cordyceps fungal infection would have been great but the Jakarta opening sets the atmosphere too. With the first two episodes being on par with the game, fans now believe that this show has the opportunity to mark itself as the best video game-adapted media with the release of the upcoming episodes
The Last of Us is now streaming on HBO Max.
Source: HBO Max The Last of Us Podcast
