Everything We Know About Sam Raimi S The Last Of Us Why It Didn T Happen

The Last of Us is a post-apocalyptic drama series based on the popular video game of the same name. The series, much like the game, follows the stories of Joel and Ellie. The former is a carpenter turned black market smuggler, and the latter, a teenage girl that holds the key to mankind’s survival. The HBO series stars Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the leading roles, and is said to be the largest — and most expensive — television production in Canadian history, filming in Alberta from July 2021 to June 2022.

With the long-anticipated premiere date of the HBO series right around the corner, many fans are wondering why there hasn’t been an adaptation sooner. The truth is famed director Sam Raimi, known for Spider-Man and The Evil Dead movies, once attempted to adapt the video game for a feature film; however, the project never got off the ground. Here is everything we know about Raimi’s The Last of Us and why it didn’t happen.

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Sam Raimi’s Version

     New Line Cinema  

With all the rave reviews pouring in from critics so far, The Last of Us is shaping up to be the best video game adaptation ever made. Historically, however, big-screen adaptations of video games don’t have the best reputation for success — just look at all the flops in recent years, such as Doom, Need for Speed, Assassin’s Creed, and more. When a Raimi-helmed film adaptation of the popular video game was announced in 2014, fans were hoping it would succeed. After all, with the director’s reputation as the creator of the Evil Dead series that revolutionized on-screen zombies, there was no doubt they had brought the right filmmaker onboard. While the project ultimately wasn’t meant to be, it’s hard not to mourn the loss of what it could have been. Raimi’s version of the popular video game could have seen Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams or Unbelievable actress Kaitlyn Dever in the role of Ellie. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Williams met with Last of Us video game developer Neil Druckman early on in the process, while Dever was invited to a table read. Druckman told media outlets he trusted Raimi as a director, but compressing 15 hours of gameplay into a two-hour film proved a daunting task. Ultimately, studio executives wanted a “bigger, sexier” version of the game that didn’t suit Druckman’s vision for the project.

Creative Differences

     HBO  

Druckman shared his thoughts on the dissolution of the project, telling A Script Apart podcast, “When I worked on the movie version, a lot of the thinking and notes were like ‘how do we make it bigger? How do we make the set pieces bigger?’” Druckman did not single anyone out while continuing, “It didn’t work for The Last of Us and I think that’s ultimately why the movie wasn’t made,”. He had envisioned a certain aesthetic for the film similar to that of No Country For Old Men while Sony-owned Screen Gems envisioned something more akin to World War Z.

When creating the game Druckman relished the outside-of-the-box approach, which focused on intimate relationships and story rather than action sequences and cheap thrills. As such, he sought the same of a feature film version. The creative disputes weren’t the only thing that led to the downfall: the project also got stalled in “development hell” for nearly two years. By that time, Druckman had become disillusioned with the project and was looking for a way out — lucky for him, it was eventually shelved.

What to Expect from the HBO Series Adaptation

Enter: Craig Mazin. When Druckman watched Mazin’s tragic historical miniseries Chernobyl, which documents the 1986 nuclear disaster and its cleanup efforts, he could finally envision The Last of Us on the small screen as he originally intended. Mazin’s style was just what he was looking for. Furthermore, Mazin and Druckman agreed on the primary focus of the project: the story. During a pitch for HBO, Mazin even successfully pulled on Druckman’s heartstrings, unraveling an intimate father-daughter tale amid an apocalyptic nightmare.

“Then, Craig just launches into the game’s story from the beginning,” Druckmann told The Hollywood Reporter. “He’s such a good storyteller, I was finding myself emotionally moved by a story that — for all intents and purposes — I shouldn’t be moved by anymore,” he says. “I realized that this is what I got wrong every other time — I didn’t have the right partner.” Druckman further stated, “Our approach for The Last of Us was ‘Let’s make it as an indie film. Let’s approach it as an indie film team, the way it’s shot [and in terms of] how small and intimate it feels.”

“And with the show, we get to lean into that even more because we don’t have to have as many action sequences as we do in the game.” Season 1 of the highly anticipated series premieres this Sunday, January 15, and features 10 episodes co-written by Druckman and Mazin.