CALGARY — When HBO executives first visited Alberta in search of filming locations for “The Last of Us,” its now wildly popular zombie-apocalypse series, the landscape was fittingly bleak.
It was the middle of the pandemic in January 2021 and Luke Azevedo, Calgary Economic Development’s film commissioner, was taking HBO senior vice-president of production Jay Roewe and “The Last of Us” producer Rose Lam on a grand tour of the province. In the midst of pandemic lockdowns, Calgary and Edmonton, already known for their desolate atmospheres, appeared especially dystopian.
There was “not much traffic during that time, put it that way,” Azevedo told The Logic in an interview.
