The zombie drama The Last of Us is an unalloyed hit for HBO, increasing its viewership as it goes along. That narrative is consistent with the latest numbers from Nielsen, the most trusted name in ratings. They just released viewership information for the week of January 30-February 5, when The Last of Us was watched for over a billion minutes, the first time it hit that milestone.
This would have been the week after the airing of the third episode, “Long, Long Time” (which I still think is the best one so far, although there’s been some stiff competition since). And it’s worth noting that we’re only talking about the streaming numbers on HBO Max; Nielsen’s new info doesn’t count people who are watching The Last of Us linearly over normal HBO, which will surely drive the number higher.
Anyway, here are the top streaming shows for the week of Jan 30-Feb 5:
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Disney+): 2.269 billion minutes watched
- You People (Netflix): 1.550 billion minutes
- New Amsterdam (Peacock/Netflix): 1.253 billion minutes
- The Last of Us (HBO Max): 1.190 billion minutes
- Minions: The Rise of Gru (Netflix): 1.184 billion minutes
- The Walking Dead (Netflix): 901 million minutes watched
- Ginny & Georgia (Netflix): 900 million minutes
- Cocomelon (Netflix): 790 million minutes
- Grey’s Anatomy (Netflix): 770 million minutes
- NCIS (Netflix): 721 million minutes
Between The Last of Us and The Walking Dead, zombies are making a comeback. Incidentally, Nielsen points out that the demographics for the The Last of Us are nearly identical for The Walking Dead: both shows skew younger and male.
Why The Last of Us avoided using green screens
There are only two episodes of The Last of Us left before the end of the first season! We’ve fallen pretty hard for the show, so we’ll be there front and center.
Part of the reason the show has caught on is because of how real and grounded it feels. Part of that comes down to the way the producers shot it; they filmed largely in sequence, so the actors experienced the story in roughly the same order as the characters did. They also tried to keep the special effects rooted in reality. Speaking to ScreenRant, production designer John Paino explained why they didn’t use a lot of green screen techniques:
"In the [original video game], they just make paths for the characters, and sure, you can go off and get a first aid kit and stuff. But we are making whole environments because the actors aren’t robots, they are not just going to walk…And the camera wants to move. So it’s taking the raw material of the game and references, and then we’ve got to make this in the real world…Because we don’t want to—and [showrunner Craig Mazin] does not want to do this—we do not want to just have people walking through a green screen."
The Last of Us continues this Sunday night with “When We Are in Need” on HBO and HBO Max.
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h/t Deadline