The Last of Us season 2 is on hold due to the WGA writers’ strike
It’s been two weeks since members of the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and several TV productions have already begun to feel its effects. Case in point: Casting for the second season of HBO’s The Last of Us — like Netflix’s Stranger Things and Disney’s Andor — has ceased in the wake of the strike, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the production.
According to Variety, casting for the second season of the popular post-apocalyptic horror series adapted from developer Naughty Dog’s 2013 videogame of the same name was put on hold earlier this week due to the WGA strike. At this time, neither series showrunner Craig Mazin nor series co-creator Neil Druckmann are currently working on the production of The Last of Us’ second season in any capacity.
Disclosure: Rank-and-file staffers at Polygon are members of the Vox Media Union, which is affiliated with the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE). The Vox Media Union’s collective bargaining agreement is separate from the Minimum Basic Agreement, the labor contract between screenwriters and television and film producers. The current labor dispute between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America (which consists of the WGAE and its sister union, the Writers Guild of America West) does not involve the newsroom unions that are affiliated with the WGAE.
The Variety report cites multiple unnamed sources claiming that, prior to this week, the casting team for the second season had been auditioning actors by asking them to read dialogue taken directly from 2020’s The Last of Us Part II, upon which the series’ second season is presumed to be based off of. This is because no scripts for the second season have been
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