This past week saw the debut of HBO’s next biggest hit and possibly the most successful video game to television show adaptation to date with Sony’s The Last of Us (TLOU) pulling in a massive 4.7 million viewers on launch day. Those viewership numbers set it up as HBO’s 3rd largest all-time launch just behind Boardwalk Empire’s debut in 2010 that drew in 4.81M and House of the Dragon’s which pulled in just shy of 10M last year. Very strong debut viewership numbers aren’t the only thing in the series’ favor though. TLOU is also currently sitting at a near perfect 99% average tomatometer from critics on Rotten Tomatoes coupled with a mighty 95% average audience score as well.
While video game to tv shows and movie adaptations have greatly faltered in the past, The Last of Us is the latest example showing us that they can succeed if done right. Netflix has been firing on all cylinders with successful adaptations of The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Dragon Age, DOTA, and of course Riot Games’ multi-award-winning Arcane (based on League of Legends); it was only a matter of time until others jumped into the mix. While it didn’t land as well with fans, due to ignoring large chunks of lore, Paramount and Microsoft’s Halo tv series also put up some massive numbers including a Paramount+ record 4.9M viewers at launch.. Did we mention that there are over 70 other video game adaptations currently in the works as well? The golden age of video game to tv and movie adaptations may be upon us!
New episodes of HBO’s The Last of Us series debut Sunday nights. Seriously, we can’t recommend this one enough. If you have HBO, be sure to check it out!
Image from: HBO
