• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
deadline.com

‘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 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.”
 
Ulysses 31

Ulysses 31

Member
Bet this time they gonna leave no room for doubt whether the Fireflies are good people and whether Joel doomed the world or not... 👀
 
Last edited:
sobaka770

sobaka770

Banned
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

Yoda

Member
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

EruditeHobo

Member
sobaka770 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

Yoda said:
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).
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
Yoda

Yoda

Member
EruditeHobo said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
VulcanRaven

VulcanRaven

Member
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.
 
Last edited:
Venuspower

Venuspower

Member
Yoda said:
Video games tend to not translate to film.
Click to expand...
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.
 
Last edited:
Fess

Fess

Member
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

Hawking Radiation

Member
NinjaBoiX said:
“That Nigel Cockmong is so woke and things, he smells of wee and his games are rubbish and stuff.”
Click to expand...
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

Malakhov

Banned
Ulysses 31 said:
Bet this time they gonna leave no room for doubt whether the Fireflies are good people and whether Joel doomed the world or not... 👀
Click to expand...
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

EruditeHobo

Member
Yoda said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
ZehDon

ZehDon

Member
Yoda said:
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).
Click to expand...
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

Clintizzle

Lord of Edge.
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.
 
Clintizzle

Clintizzle

Lord of Edge.
cyber69 said:
Invaluable as in do the opposite of everything she suggest.
Click to expand...
KK14gWg.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The Last Of Us season 2 could run through 4 seasons with a shorter season 2 and a "much larger" season 3. No padding or filler expected.
49
3K
sloppyjoe_gamer replied
[VGC] Neil Druckmann says new Naughty Dog title could ‘redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming’
5 6 7 8 9
415
25K
Loxus replied
‘The Last Of Us’: Isabela Merced Cast As Dina In Season 2 Of HBO Series
2 3
109
14K
DrFigs replied
Production of "The Last of Us" season 2 to be delayed
News
21
2K
DeepEnigma replied
"It's fantastic": Phil Spencer praises The Last of Us series and Neil Druckmann's work on the production
News 2
99
6K
Signal Rockets replied
Top Bottom