The Last Of Us movie nearly cast a very different Ellie

We’re mere days away from the premiere of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation, and I can barely contain my excitement. Starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, the prestige series is set to kick off with a whopper of a first episode - thought to last for around 85 minutes.

HBO is really throwing everything they’ve got at this in the hopes of attracting new fans as well as existing ones. The budget for the show’s first season was reportedly bigger than the budget for the first five seasons of Game of Thrones. We don’t know the exact budget but it’s thought to be in excess of $69 million - the median average for the first five GoT seasons. Years ago though, The Last of Us was almost made into a film starring none other than GoT’s Maisie Williams.

Check out the latest trailer for The Last of Us below.

The failed The Last of Us movie is no secret. The Sam Raimi project ultimately failed because studio execs wanted an action-heavy trail of set pieces, while Raimi and franchise creator Neil Druckmann wanted to tell a more grounded story - which I think is what we can expect to see in the HBO series. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Druckmann said that both Maisie Williams and Kaitlyn Dever were considered for the role of Ellie.

Druckmann explained that the role required someone “tough and vulnerable and wise beyond [their] years and also have a potential for violence.” He added that “dozens and dozens” auditioned for the role. Dever, best known for her role in Booksmart, even participated in a table read but by the time the HBO series came around, both actresses had aged out of the role.

Williams and Dever’s names have appeared in plenty of fancasts over the years so this isn’t a total surprise. Druckmann noted that when they watched Ramsey’s audition, “It was like Ellie realised in live action. It didn’t feel like watching an actor.” The Last of Us debuts on 15 January on HBO, and 16 January on Sky and NOW in the UK.