Screen Gems has taken the lead on a film adaptation of Naughty Dog’s acclaimed action-adventure game, The Last of Us. The script will be written by the game’s creative director, Neil Druckmann, and the project team will include Naughty Dog Co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, along with Game Director Bruce Straley and Sam Raimi of Ghost House Pictures.
The Last of Us is lauded for its emotional storytelling, character development, and darkly engaging themes. It’s also no secret that the public loves the post-apocalyptic genre, even more so when it includes zombies. While technically the creatures in The Last of Us are the result of a mutated fungal outbreak that infests your brain and causes an aggressive transformation, I’m going to go ahead and classify the Cordyceps fungus monsters as zombies, seeing as they’re violent, morphed humans bent on taking a bite out of your jugular.
Naughty Dog’s successful title has a special emotionality and compelling characters that could translate well onto the big screen, but replicating the special qualities of a loved game into film is no easy feat. However, it’s a good sign that Naughty Dog’s creative team will be leading the project, because we all want to see our favorite games shine on the silver screen. If you want to hear some cautious opinions about film adaptations of video games, you can check out Kate’s feature and Yamilia’s video.
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