Popular game ‘The Last Of Us’ gets HBO series greenlight

The Last of Us, the popular Playstation video game series, is coming to the small screen via HBO.

The show will be written and produced by Neil Druckmann, the writer of the first game, and Craig Mazin, the creator of the critically acclaimed 2019 Chernobyl drama.

The Last Of Us will be shown on HBO and has been given a full series order. While the official release date is yet to be announced, the teaser provided by HBO back in May has sent fans into an excited buzz over social media and it is expected that the release date will be given in the near future. Work was not due to start on the series until the second part of the game was released on Playstation 4 in May of this year.

In his Scriptnotes podcast, Craig Mazin said:

“We can’t start on it right away because they’re still finishing up the second game. We’re going to dig in full, full earnest once they wrap up their final work on the sequel.”

Both parts 1 and 2 of the games received high praise from critics, including scores in the mid-nineties on Metacritic.

The Last of Us follows two protagonists across both games: Joel and Ellie are two survivors of a zombie apocalypse, who are wandering across the US in order to find salvation.

https://twitter.com/clmazin/status/1271340623434444801

Generally, there are an increasing amount of video-game-to-TV adaptations with the added bonus of multiple streaming services. Many will recognise the popularity of book-to-TV adaptations, such as the exceptionally popular adaptation of Game of Thrones. Another popular adaptation in the last year was The Witcher, although this covers multiple media types as it was a book to game then TV spin-off. Binge-worthy shows are very popular, but as the mixed reaction towards the end of Game Of Thrones proved, there is always a bit of a tightrope walk in getting these shows right.

Very little has been released about the story for The Last of Us, but it was confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter in March that the series will cover the events of the original game, with possible future seasons coming later down the line.

Troy Baker, the actor who plays Joel, mentioned that he supports this adaptation of the story over the original idea to produce a feature film.

“The thing that encourages me most is that while there were a lot of people in Hollywood that stood up and took notice and were thinking ‘Oh a lot of people like this’ – we should turn it into a movie, Marzin came at it from a fan perspective”.

Further details of the show are expected to be released soon.

Words by Jaimie Kay

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