Neil Druckmann, co-president of the video game studio Naughty Dog, had a hands-on approach in creating The Last of Us video game series. He also worked closely with Chernobyl executive producer, Craig Mazin, to bring the video game to television.
When talking about his decision to turn the video game adaptation into a TV series, Druckmann went into detail about the pros and cons in a recent The New Yorker article. He mentioned his skepticism of turning a 15-hour video game into a compressed two-hour movie and decided that to bring out the best of the story, it had to be made into a series. Druckmann and Mazin had the same opinion about turning The Last of Us into a television release, with Mazin being “enamored” by the video game since its release.
Naughty Dog had previously witnessed a video game adaptation of their other successful title, Uncharted, which received mixed reviews. The script for the film spent more than a decade being passed around through the hands of directors and writers before entering production. This was something that Druckmann did not want for The Last of Us, and wanted all the details of the game to reflect on television. “You think you need to fix it, and in trying to fix it you change too much, or you’ve lost what made it special,” Druckmann noted when talking about inculcating all the details of the game to the show. He also mentioned understanding the source material to make a successful video game adaptation.
The Last of Us will premiere on 15 January 2023 and will star Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie. The series will be released under HBO’s network.
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