The Last of Us was almost adapted into a film before becoming a series, and it may well be that we avoided the worst thanks to Neil Druckmann.
Around 2014, shortly after the undeniable success of the first The Last of Us, a film adaptation was started by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony. Sam Raimi (evil Dead, Doctor Strange 2) was then chosen to direct the feature film and the names of Maisie Williams (Game of Throness) and Bruce Campbell ( evil Dead) circulate here and there. Only here, for Neil Druckmann, nothing is going well.
Close to a The Last of Us with Milla Jovovich (no, but not far)
During an interview with The New YorkerDruckmann returned to what happened to the film The Last of Us by Sam Raimi and how he ended up meeting Craig Mazin, the current showrunner of the series coming next January.
For the creator of The Last of Us, the Screen Gems movie was definitely heading in the wrong direction. This subsidiary of Sony had managed to make a name for itself with the adaptation of the franchise resident Evil which gave birth to (too many?) several films by Paul WS Anderson starring Milla Jovovich. To use the terms used by Neil Druckmann, Screen Gems was, at the time, making films “of a very particular type”. And the more the project progressed, the more Neil Druckmann was hesitant.
The other producers kept saying they wanted something “big” and “sexy,” a popcorn blockbuster that would appeal to as many people as possible. An action-packed film close to World War Z. While Neil on his side, hoped rather to focus on the narration to prove to a large audience that the video game is capable of bringing a real story, a real narrative construction, and more.
As a result, by dint of fighting, Neil Druckman ended up having Screen Gems worn out and the studio dropped the case. Sony then actively sought another collaborator to start work on his film before the soufflé subsided.
It was then that Druckmann also began to lose patience and during one of his discussions with Carter Swan, head of license expansion at Sony, the creator of The Last of Us banging his fist on the table, hammering that he thought “a movie was not a good way to adapt his game” to success, to which Carter replied that Craig Mazin (whom he had previously met ) had precisely declined the offer to make a film for the same reasons. And that’s exactly why Druckman decided to meet the Chernobyl showrunner.
A series to save them all
The rest, we know. Neil Druckman and Craig Mazin worked together to adapt The Last of Us in series by surrounding himself with a 5-star cast. The show will be broadcast on HBO Max from January 15 and should arrive at home in stride, although we still do not know when, or on which platform.
Anyway, Neil Druckmann is betting very big on this series and even hopes that it will break the curse of video game adaptations for cinema and television.
It must be said that lately, the video game has only had the right to light films, like sonic and Detective Pikachuor totally failed projects like the series resident Evil or the movie Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (yes there are a lot of resident Evilbut it’s not our fault).
Series The Last of Us hopes to establish itself as a faithful adaptation and serious series focused on its narration and its characters, and not as just popcorn entertainment. We just want to see it all.
