Last week, HBO and PlayStation Productions announced the hit PlayStation video game The Last of Us is set to be adapted into a television series. However, Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, who is set to co-write The Last of Us series, has revealed full production won’t start until video game developer Naughty Dog has completed and shipped The Last of Us Part II.
The news was revealed on the latest episode of Mazin’s weekly podcast Scriptnotes (via IGN), stating production on the series won’t start until The Last of Us creative director and co-writer of the TV adaptation Neil Druckmann has finished his duties on the sequel.
“We can’t start on it right away because they’re still finishing up the second game, but pretty soon,” Mazin said. “We’ve been talking about it for months and coming up with little plans and things. But we’re going to dig in in full, full earnest pretty soon, just as soon as they wrap up their final work on the sequel. So hopefully more exciting news to come on that front because it’s something we’re both motivated to see on TV.”
Mazin continued to discuss how he insisted The Last of Us should be made into a TV show rather than a movie due to the development of the relationship between lead characters Joel and Ellie throughout a long journey.
“It was going to be a movie for a long time. Neil was working on it as a movie for one of Sony’s divisions, and my feeling was that you can’t make a movie out of this thing, it has to be a show, it needs length,” Mazin said.
“It is about the development of a relationship over the course of a long journey, so it has to be a television show and that’s that. That’s the way I see it. Happily, Neil agreed and HBO was delighted, and so here we are.”
Are you looking forward to The Last of Us TV show? Do you think the project would work better as a TV series rather than a movie? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @flickeringmyth…
