With Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey having been cast in the lead roles, the upcoming HBO TV series based on “The Last of Us” game franchise is moving forward quickly now.
As we know, the series isn’t a spin-off but rather a direct adaptation of the acclaimed Naughty Dog video games with the first season expected to adapt the story of the first season.
Speaking with IGN recently as part of SXSW 2021, game director and executive producer Neil Druckmann says his and showrunner Craig Mazin’s approach will have some deviations, but for the most part will be even closer to the game’s story than expected:
“As far as the superficial things, like should [a character] wear the same plaid shirt or the same red shirt? They might or might not appear in it, that’s way less important to us than getting the core of who these people are and the core of their journey.”
Indeed, he says “the philosophical underpinnings of the story” are what he considered most important in getting right. One change of course is less action – as its a TV series, they can cut back on the action involved in training players with the mechanics of the game:
“Things sometimes stay pretty close. It’s funny to see my dialogue there from the games in HBO scripts. And sometimes they deviate greatly to much better effect because we are dealing with a different medium.
HBO’s been great in pushing us to move away from hardcore action and focus more on the drama of the character. Some of my favorite episodes so far have deviated greatly from the story, and I can’t wait for people to see them.”
Druckmann says he’s just seen the first prosthetic test for the Clicker and it’s “so rad to see this thing come to physical life.”
“Beanpole” director Kantemir Balagov helms the highly-anticipated series which is expected to film later this year ahead of a late 2022 airing.
