Because nothing sounds like a relaxing, chill-out respite from our daily struggles like watching a deadly pandemic sweep across the nation, transforming regular people into psychotic monsters while government institutions cause far more damage and destruction through venal self-interest than any actual good: Hey, HBO green-lit that The Last Of Us show.
This is per THR, which reports that the television adaptation of Naughty Dog’s celebrated video game series The Last Of Us—which tracks our collective efforts to both survive, and (generally fail to) keep our humanity intact in the face of an extinction-level event—has now been picked up to series. Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin—who it will never stop being funny to us to also think of as “Scary Movie 4's Craig Mazin”—will write the series, working alongside Neil Druckmann, creative director on the massively celebrated games, while Mazin’s Chernobyl colleague Johan Renck has signed on to help direct.
For those unfamiliar with The Last Of Us, it tells the story of Joel and Ellie, two survivors attempting to make their way across a post-apocalyptic America beset by fungus-induced zombies, which are dangerous, and regular-ass people, who are typically worse. In other words, a pretty standard zombie story, albeit one that’s elevated by the presentation, performance, and emotional stakes of its central surrogate dad-surrogate daughter dynamic.
There’s no word yet when the show will go into formal production or begin airing, because, well: The pandemic. The series, which went into development back in March, is the latest idea to come out of PlayStation Productions, the Sony-owned studio behind Heavenly Sword (?), the Ratchet And Clank movie (?), and that upcoming Uncharted adaptation where Tom Holland plays a wee baby version of Naughty Dog’s other big video game hero, Nathan Drake. (?)