The Last of Us movie has been stuck in developmental limbo for some time now. If Naughty Dog director Neil Druckmann has his way, he’d want it to stay there – unless considerable changes were made to the last script he saw.
“We used to just be excited – ‘Oh my god, movies are looking at us’ – but then as more time passes on we’re not excited about a direct adaptation because we’ve already told that story very well cinematically,” reveals Druckmann during a DICE Summit panel about storytelling (via Glixel)
For Druckmann, The Last of Us movie wouldn’t work because, if it were a re-telling, it would tread all over the iconic work laid down by Troy Baker as Joel and Ashley Johnson as Ellie. It would be very disorienting to see someone else in that role,” Druckmann says.
Druckmann believes the direction the Uncharted movie is headed down is the path for any potential The Last of Us movie to follow. “[Director Shawn Levy] wanting to tell a story with potentially a young Nathan Drake that fills in some of the gaps of his life, is way more interesting.”
Personally, I have little-to-no interest in a movie being a direct The Last of Us movie adaptation. Not only is the game too complex to distil into one 2-hour experience (if you’re looking at adapting it directly, anyway), it’s a story that has already been told, and one told exceptionally well. Besides, there are plenty of other characters to explore and journeys to follow in The Last of Us universe.
Maybe we can see the first days of Bill’s descent into madness? Or join the Fireflies on their countless missions across mainland America? The (depressing) world is your oyster.
