A big-screen adaptation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us had been in development for a number of years, but the project transformed into an HBO series last year that will be written by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann. The hit video-game takes place decades after a pandemic has radically changed civilization with infected humans running wild and survivors killing each other for food and supplies. The player takes control of Joel, a survivor who is hired to smuggle a 14 year-old girl, Ellie, across the United States.
The HBO series was slated to reunite Craig Mazin with his Chernobyl director Johan Renck, but THR has reported that Renck has been forced to drop out of the project due to a scheduling conflict and that he will be replaced by Kantemir Balagov as the director of the pilot. Balagov's most recent film was Beanpole, a drama that took place in Leningrad after World War II devestated the city and followed two young women searching for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.
Craig Mazin provided a small update on the state of the series last summer, which he says will enhance the original game rather than undo it.
I think fans of something worry that, when the property gets licensed to someone else, those people don't really understand it, or are going to change it. In this case, I'm doing it with the guy who did it, and so the changes that we're making are designed to fill things out and expand, not to undo, but rather to enhance.
Mazin added that he's huge fan of The Last of Us and that getting to tackle the project is a "dream come true," but he admits that it's somewhat intimidating when you factor in the rather intense emotions which the video-game franchise has generated. "We're creating anew and we're also reimagining what is already there to present a different format," Mazin said. "It's kind of a dream come true for me. I'm a little bit scared because a lot of emotions connected to this game are rather intense. I think I'm probably going to go hide in a bunker for a while because you can't make everyone happy!" While it's somewhat disappointing to see Renck depart the project, I'm still excited to see what Mazin, Druckmann, and Balagov will do with the series.