HBO’s The Last of Us show includes story ideas dropped from the games

HBO is taking a stab at adapting The Last of Us for TV, with creator Neil Druckmann aboard. And it sounds like he has some interesting ideas.

All of a sudden, television studios are in a rush to adapt video games for the small screen. Amazon is making a Fallout series, Showtime has a Halo show in the works, and HBO is going for the gold with an adaptation of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us.

That’s the one I’m most excited about, both because The Last of Us games are already very cinematic and a little subtler than your usual story-driven game, and because Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann is personally involved. According to The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin (the guy behind Chernobyl, which is another reason to be excited), Druckmann himself is pitching some pretty exciting stuff for the TV series.

“Neil, at one point, he was like, ‘You know, there’s one thing we were talking about for a while’ — and then he told me what it was, and I was like, ‘Gonk! Okay, jaw drop: That’s going in,” Mazin said on the BBC Sounds’ Must Watch webcast. “We have to do that. You couldn’t stop me from doing that. You will have to shoot me to stop me from doing that — so we’re doing that!”

The Last of Us tells the story of Joel and Ellie, two survivors of a zombie apocalypse making their way across a ruined United States. We’re not sure exactly what Druckmann and co wanted them to do in the games that didn’t make the cut, but Mazin promises that whatever it is, it’s not going to play like useless filler.

"[I]t’s not like we just decided, “Well, wouldn’t it be cool if there’s one episode where Joel and Ellie get on motorcycles and confront a motorcycle gang?” That’s not what we do. There’s no episodic nonsense here. This is all very much, like, curated. But the things that are new and enhancing of the storyline that we’re doing are connected in organic, serious ways that I think fans of the game and newcomers alike will appreciate."

If you’ve followed the discourse surrounding The Last of Us games, you know that while the first one is pretty much universally lauded, the recently released sequel inspired a lot of heated debate among fans, with some praising it for its bold storytelling decisions and others deriding it for the same stuff. We’re not sure how the show is breaking itself up, but I could see a first season that covered the first game and a second that adapted Part II.

In any case, Mazin wants to put fans at ease by assuring them that, whatever happens, Druckmann is on hand to make sure it meets their expectations. “[T]he one anxiety I think fans of something have is that, when the property gets licensed to someone else, those people don’t really understand it, or are gonna change it, or make it stupid,” he said. “And in this case, I’m doing it with the guy [Druckmann] who did it. And so the changes that we’re making are designed to fill things out and expand. Not to undo, but rather to enhance.”

Or, if fans hate the show anyway, Mazin can claim that it was all Druckmann’s idea. It’s win-win for Mazin either way, really.

There’s no release date for the show as of yet, but the writing continues. Like everything else, we imagine things were pushed back a bit by the coronavirus pandemic, but you cant rush a good zombie.

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h/t Syfy Wire