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The Last of Us is the hottest TV show on the planet. Many people have already called it the best series of 2023. The hype around the show was insane because it is an adaptation of arguably one of the most popular video games of all time. The immense success of the TV show is because of the brilliant minds of Chernobyl fame- Craig Mazin (Creator and Writer) to be the showrunner of the show along with the game’s creator – Neil Druckmann behind the camera. Along with that there is heavy investment from the network as the budget of the first season of the series is at least $100 Million. Pedro Pascal who has now gotten into a habit of delivering great performances and only appearing in fantastic projects. TLOU is really the most famous thing on the planet right now. Don’t believe me? I have proof.
The Last of Us is a Huge Success for HBO!
The Last of Us has been such a phenomenal success, it has already been renewed for a second season. After its debut, it was HBO’s second most watched show (22 million viewers), only behind Game of Thrones’ prequel House of the Dragon. he network also reported The Last of Us saw three consecutive weeks of audience growth to score series-high ratings with episode 4. While the ratings are one way to judge the success of the series there is more evidence that TLOU has just become a global sensation.
In a study conducted by a site called I’m-a-Puzzle it was revealed that The Last of Us is the most searched-for video game adaptation online with more than 300,000 monthly searches, beating Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (246,000 average monthly searches) and Paramount’s live-action Halo show (201,000 average monthly searches), which will return for a second season. To know which is the most popular video game adaptation, I’m-a-Puzzle analyzed over 50 TV shows and anime series adapted from video games during the 30 years. The top 10 that surfaced in the study are featured below:
| Rank | TV Series | Years | Search Volume |
| 1. | The Last of Us | 2023 | 301,000 |
| 2. | Cyberpunk: Edgerunners | 2022 | 246,000 |
| 3. | Halo | 2022- | 201,000 |
| 4. | Castlevania | 2017-2021 | 110,000 |
| 5. | Sonic Prime | 2022 | 90,500 |
| 6. | Sonic Boom | 2014-2017 | 74,000 |
| 7. | The Witcher: Blood Origin | 2022 | 74,000 |
| 8. | Crossfire | 2020 | 33,100 |
| 9. | Pokémon | 1997- | 33,100 |
| 10. | Arcane: League of Legends | 2021 | 22,200 |
A spokesperson for I’m-a-Puzzle said, “This research demonstrates a real variety in popular games including modern game adaptations, without forgetting about the iconic classics.” The exec further added, “In fact, on one hand, the list is topped by The Last of Us, which is the most recent adaptation of an extremely popular game. At the same time, it figures names like Pokémon, which started airing in 1997 and counts a whopping 1,228 episodes to this day and is one of the most popular anime of the world.”
Pedro Pascal leads the cast of The Last of Us as Joel, a smuggler hired to deliver Bella Ramsey’s Ellie, a teenager immune to the Cordyceps brain infection that has wiped out the world, to a group of survivors working to manufacture a cure. Alongside Pascal and Ramsey, the cast for HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation includes Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Nick Offerman and Storm Reid. The first six episode of TLOU is available for streaming on HBO Max or Disney+ Hotstar, new episodes would release every week.
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