The Last of Us show “will be the best, most authentic game adaptation”

The Last of Us has one of the richest stories in video game. Ever since it was released back in 2013, there have been mumblings of a live-action adaptation, and now, almost a decade on, HBO is finally giving it the TV treatment it deserves, with Game of Thrones alums Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell) and Bella Ramsey (Lyanna Mormont) starring as lead characters Joel and Ellie.

The Last of Us is set over two decades into a zombie apocalypse, where smuggler Joel is tasked with escorting Ellie — a young girl who appears immune to the zombie virus — out of an oppressive quarantine zone and to a group called the Fireflies, who will use her blood to develop a cure. To get there, they must traverse the zombie-ridden U.S., where the living prove just as much a threat as the dead.

Why Sam Raimi didn’t end up making his planned The Last of Us movie

Before HBO jumped on The Last of Us, acclaimed director Sam Reimi attempted to bring it to the big screen. In addition to directing movies like Spider-Man, Raimi has a long history with the undead; look no further than his beloved Evil Dead franchise. So why did his Last of Us movie fail to get off the ground?

Well, it turns out that The Last of Us creator Neil Druckmann was unimpressed by his approach. Speaking to The New Yorker, Druckmann explained that production company Screen Gems wanted to give the film a grander, “sexier” scope, making it more like other zombie blockbusters such as World War Z. But Druckmann wanted something more intimate and character-driven, something along the lines of No Country for Old Men. “When I worked on the movie version, a lot of the thinking and notes were like ‘How do we make it bigger? How do we make the set pieces bigger?'” Druckmann told Collider. “I think that’s ultimately why the movie wasn’t made.”

Druckmann is very aware of the very precarious history of video game adaptations. From Assassin’s Creed to Warcraft and beyond, they have a bad reputation. After seeing so many failures, he thinks he’s found the one mistake that they all have in common: “The other thing that people get wrong is that they think people want to see the gameplay onscreen,” he said, citing the very odd first-person shooter scene in 2005’s Doom. “Hopefully, this will put that video game curse to bed.”

Why HBO’s The Last of Us show will be less violent than the games

Like most zombie games, The Last of Us is a pretty gruesome affair. Whether it’s the disgusting fungal zombies or the horrific death scenes, it’s not a game for the squeamish. There’s a lot of blood. That said, the TV version will cut down what the producers deem to be unessential violence.

“One of the things that I loved hearing from [co-creator Craig Mazin] and HBO very early on was, ‘Let’s take out all the violence except for the very essential.’” Druckmann told SFX Magazine. “That allowed the violence to have even more impact than in the game, because when you hold on showing the threat and you’re seeing people’s reaction to a threat, that makes it scarier. And when we do reveal the infected and the Clickers, you get to see what brought down humanity and why everyone is so scared.”

At the same time, Druckmann promises that The Last of Us show “will be the best, most authentic game adaptation.” The new series premieres on January 15 on HBO.

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