The Last Of Us would make a pretty fucking sweet movie. For many fans, the gameplay (while awesome) was actually secondary to the incredible story told, so surely a film adaptation would go down a treat?
Indeed, a Last of Us movie has been in development for a while now, but according to Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann, it’s not in such a good place at the minute.
Speaking to IGN, Druckmann confirmed that a table read-through of the script had taken place, but work on the adaptation has since stalled. Apparently nothing has been done on it for over a year.
Druckmann said:
I know I said in an interview a while back we had a table read, got the script to a good place and it kind of entered development hell like these things tend to do. There hasn’t been any work done on it in over a year and a half.
Druckmann actually wrote the script for the movie himself, and has confirmed that it won’t follow the plot of the game exactly (but will capture the overall tone).
No director has been attached to the project, but Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead) is confirmed to produce. Maisie Williams (of Game of Thrones fame) is said to be a frontrunner for the role of Ellie, but since time is linear and people age, that could well change by the time they get around to casting.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. The Uncharted movie is apparently coming along nicely, although Druckmann has said Naughty Dog are only “somewhat involved”.
He explained:
We’ll tell them what we think works, what we think doesn’t work. That’s where we’re at. Last I heard is they got a new screenwriter, but we haven’t seen anything in a while.
Meanwhile, in videogame land, Uncharted 4 launches May 10. Druckmann reckons it’s ending will leave fans divided – intriguing, no?
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.