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[IbizaPocholo]

‘The Last Of Us’: HBO Hands Series Order To Video Game Adaptation From Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann

HBO has given a series order to The Last of Us, the adaptation of the Playstation video game, from Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.

deadline.com

HBO has given a series order to The Last of Us, the adaptation of the PlayStation video game, from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, game creator Neil Druckmann and Game of Thrones exec producer Carolyn Strauss.

The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television in association with PlayStation Productions, Word Games and Naughty Dog. The network didn’t reveal how many episodes have been commissioned.

The Last of Us is an action-adventure game that was developed by Naughty Dog and released via Sony PlayStation in 2013. The series takes place 20 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.

The series is written by Mazin and Druckmann, and the pair exec produce alongside Strauss, Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan.

“Craig and Neil are visionaries in a league of their own,” said Francesca Orsi, EVP HBO Programming. “With them at the helm alongside the incomparable Carolyn Strauss, this series is sure to resonate with both die-hard fans of The Last of Us games and newcomers to this genre-defining saga. We’re delighted to partner with Naughty Dog, Word Games, Sony and PlayStation to adapt this epic, powerfully immersive story.”

Said Jeff Frost, President of Sony Pictures Television Studios, and Asad Qizilbash, Head of PlayStation Productions: “We’re thrilled to be working with HBO and this fantastic creative team to bring The Last of Us series to life,” PlayStation’s innovative storytelling and ingenuity is a natural complement to SPT’s creative focus. Our collaboration is a great example of our ‘One Sony’ philosophy at work. We look forward to developing even more iconic game IP in the future.”

 

[IbizaPocholo]

‘Last of Us’ HBO Series Finds Its Director (Exclusive)

'Chernobyl' helmer Johan Renck was initially to direct the pilot but had to drop out because of a scheduling conflict.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[DeepEnigma]

Now that's a scrambled eggs headline.

 

[assurdum]

Oh God no Neil no Neil please. I hate what he did to the series with TLOU2.

 

[GHG]

Stefi Cohen to play Abby.

Cant wait.

 

[The Hamburglar]

They must be drunk if they’d give Neil the reigns

 

[Ulysses 31]

Bet this time they gonna leave no room for doubt whether the Fireflies are good people and whether Joel doomed the world or not...

 

[EruditeHobo]

Mazin killed it with Chernobyl. This is gonna be good.

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

They must be drunk if they’d give Neil the reigns

Disingenuous comment.

The guy has more knowledge of the characters and than anyone and if the series is going to be at all faithful, it would behove HBO to have him involved.

 

[ethomaz]

This has the potential to be huge.

 

[ethomaz]

They must be drunk if they’d give Neil the reigns

There is no series without having him involved lol

 

[Hawking Radiation]

I love how the mere mention of Neil Druckmann triggers some folk whenever it comes to this game.

 

[sobaka770]

I am cautiously optimistic. This can be a great show, I hope they don't just retell the story of videogame in expanded format though.

 

[Yoda]

Video games tend to not translate to film. If this manages to get made, I'd bet money it's a mediocre version of The Walking Dead (early seasons).

 

[EruditeHobo]

I am cautiously optimistic. This can be a great show, I hope they don't just retell the story of videogame in expanded format though.

They need to do more, no question. Just a retelling of the 1st game would be boring.
I expect this will be more interesting than that.

Video games tend to not translate to film. If this manages to get made, I'd bet money it's a mediocre version of The Walking Dead (early seasons).

MOST video games. Because the vast majority of video games are severely lacking, narratively. But for this, there's no reason for this to not translate well to the medium of episodic TV. Everything they have is at their disposal, in terms of character and subtext, in terms of conflict. They've got it all to interpret/adapt, there's no excuses for this one.

We'll see. I might end up being really disappointed... but I'm betting that this will be excellent.

 

[Yoboman]

Oh God no Neil no Neil please. I hate what he did to the series with TLOU2.

He literally created the franchise

 

[Yoda]

They need to do more, no question. Just a retelling of the 1st game would be boring.
I expect this will be more interesting than that.



MOST video games. Because the vast majority of video games are severely lacking, narratively. But for this, there's no reason for this to not translate well to the medium of episodic TV. Everything they have is at their disposal, in terms of character and subtext, in terms of conflict. They've got it all to interpret/adapt, there's no excuses for this one.

We'll see. I might end up being really disappointed... but I'm betting that this will be excellent.

They can't copy the game 1:1. Most combat sequences obviously would get omitted (the majority of the game), and the original pacing of the story would've originally considered said combat scenes for its "peaks and lows" so to speak. When adjusting this for a new script, a lot can get lost in translation.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I've been watching "video game films" since the first mortal kombat back in the 90s and have come to accept they'll be a quick cash grab because the execs know the IP will have a good level of brand recognition + fanbase to milk.

 

[VulcanRaven]

I'm really excited about this. This can be very good if done right. I hope they choose the right actors. I'm a bit worried that this might not work because some stories are just better as games.

 

[Raven117]

It could be interesting with that GROUP of people involved.

 

[RoadHazard]

They must be drunk if they’d give Neil the reigns

Yeah, that hack has never made a successful story-driven game in his sorry life.

Right.

And he's not doing it on his own. THAT would be crazy. But Chernobyl was amazing, so this seems promising.

 

[Venuspower]

Video games tend to not translate to film.

I agree, but TLOU will be a TV series. Not a film.
Which means that they won't be limited by a typical movie length of ~120 minutes.
This is a great benefit. It will be really interesting to see how it will turn out. Of course there are
some other video games that got a TV series. But those were not really high budget I think.
Which is why they turned out that great (Before someone yells: The Witcher is not a video game adaptation).

So far I have not heard anything regarding the budget for each episode. This will clearly be another important factor
on how the series will look. Besides that it will be really interesting to see in which direction they are going with filming.
Are they going in the same direction as TWD (real sets, real locations etc. and ugly CGI). Will they use greenscreens, or are they going in the same direction as The Mandalorian (=> The Volume).

It will be interesting to see how they will transform the locations from the game into RL. Let's not forget that TLOU plays "20 years later" (to quote the game). Which is why the design of the sets would probably be more difficult than for TWD. So it would acutally make sense to use something like The Volume. The guys over at Lucasfilm are using Unreal Engine for that stuff. With TLOU they could use the Naughty Dog Engine and the whole stuff could actually look a lot like the game (of course much better). But yea... the budget... this will be interesting.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

I love how the mere mention of Neil Druckmann triggers some folk whenever it comes to this game.

“That Nigel Cockmong is so woke and things, he smells of wee and his games are rubbish and stuff.”

 

[devilNprada]

Doesn't sound like something I would watch, but hey good luck!

 

[HotPocket69]

BIGOT SANDWICHES FOR EVERYONE!

 

[Fess]

This could be interesting assuming they find the right actors. Everyone who wants this already know the game plot though, they need a sub plot of some sort.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

“That Nigel Cockmong is so woke and things, he smells of wee and his games are rubbish and stuff.”

You know getting pee'd on by a transgender individual is on my bucket list.
I guess its just out of curiosity to see if 'it' works differently when you are transgender.
I'm sure Nigel Cockmong indulged in this very practice when approving auditions for the role of Abby hence the pee smell.

 

[Malakhov]

Could be interesting, hopefully won't end up like a walking dead version 2.0 though

 

[Malakhov]

Bet this time they gonna leave no room for doubt whether the Fireflies are good people and whether Joel doomed the world or not...

Maybe, a lot of people were offended by Joel's actions but I wasn't one of them. Would of done exactly the same he did except maybe the lying to Ellie part, although if he didn't, she might of wanted to go back and sacrifice herself for humanity

As a father, I'd kill the whole planet for my daughter or for my son, I couldn't care less.

 

[EruditeHobo]

They can't copy the game 1:1. Most combat sequences obviously would get omitted (the majority of the game), and the original pacing of the story would've originally considered said combat scenes for its "peaks and lows" so to speak. When adjusting this for a new script, a lot can get lost in translation.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but I've been watching "video game films" since the first mortal kombat back in the 90s and have come to accept they'll be a quick cash grab because the execs know the IP will have a good level of brand recognition + fanbase to milk.

The circumstances of this series very existence should demonstrate to you, at least on the most basic level, this is not just another example of trying to milk the fanbase of recognizable IP with "a good level of brand recognition".

We'll have to see. But most video game movies have been adapted from terrible sources, in terms of narrative. That has nothing to do with this, necessarily at least. This is it's own thing. If the Bioshock movie had happened, or if the MGS movie happens, and the Uncharted movie... these are different classes of story than what has previously applied to "video game movie". For a whole bunch of reasons.

 

[ZehDon]

Video games tend to not translate to film. If this manages to get made, I'd bet money it's a mediocre version of The Walking Dead (early seasons).

Video games tend not to translate to film because with most games the "game" part is the component of the experience that makes it all work. No one enjoys Mario exclusively because of the conflict with Bowser, or the politics of the Mushroom Kingdom. Without the gameplay to make them tolerable, those stories fall apart. With "The Last of Us", the "game" component is largely irrelevant because it has zero impact on the cut-scenes, which is the focus of the experience. So, they're basically remaking the movie they already filmed, so it there's no reason it shouldn't work.

With that said, I have zero interest here because the game did little for me, and Bruce Straley isn't involved. It was Straley who pushed to transform Druckmann's original ultra-violent grim-dark story into the story people ultimately connected with. The irony, of course, being that the moment Straley left, Druckmann went back to the original grim-dark plot that Straley didn't like, and it pushed away about half the audience. With Druckmann now left to his own devices, I half-expect he'll re-imagine the The Last of Us Part 1's story to be closer to the original version that Straley didn't like.

 

[Clintizzle]

I hope they consult Anita Sharkeesian on this. Her input is going to be invaluable.

I wonder how many people are going to compare it to The Walking Dead.

 

[mckmas8808]

Can't wait!

 

[sendit]

I hope they consult Anita Sharkeesian on this. Her input is going to be invaluable.

I wonder how many people are going to compare it to The Walking Dead.

Invaluable as in do the opposite of everything she suggest.

 

[Clintizzle]

Invaluable as in do the opposite of everything she suggest.