Update: Mahershala Ali was not offered the role of Joel in HBO's The Last of Us television series, but was rumored to be in the running for the role.
Two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali was rumored to be in the running for the role of Joel in HBO's The Last of Us television adaptation.
Ali was reported to be considering this offer, as reported by The Illuminerdi; however, the actor was not cast nor offered the role of Joel at the time of this writing. HBO's The Last of Us is based on Naughty Dog's video game of the same name, which released in 2013.
Joel in HBO's The Last of Us is described as "a ferocious survivor" in his late '40s, "having lost everything and everyone he loves and [having] become desensitized and hardhearted by the devastation of the pandemic that destroyed civilization." If Ali signs on, it would be his second major HBO project after playing Wayne Hays in Season 3 of True Detective.
Ali's other TV roles include Remy Danton on House of Cards, Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes on Luke Cage and Sheikh Malik on Ramy. He will also lend his voice to the upcoming Invincible animated series as Titan, a vigilante who joins the titular superhero in his war against crime.
On the film side, Ali is attached to star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's upcoming reboot of the Blade movies. That project has yet to receive an official release date.
Sony announced plans to make a film adaptation of The Last of Us in 2014, with the original game's co-director/writer Neil Druckmann penning the script and Sam Raimi producing. However, the project struggled to move forward after that and had fallen into development limbo by 2016.
In November 2020, HBO gave a series order to The Last of Us TV show, with Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones) serving as executive producers. Druckmann, who is now co-president of Naughty Dog, will also produce along with Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan.
The synopsis for HBO's The Last of Us reads,
Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation® platforms, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
Written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, HBO's The Last of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television and stars Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Director Kantemir Balagov will be helming the series' pilot episode.
Source: The Illuminerdi