What makes your spin on this, as adapted for television, different?ĭRUCKMANN: Yeah. SUMMERS: You know, zombie and plague narratives have been popular for a long time even before The Last Of Us the video game launched. The show has to work for them just as well. And we had two audiences we always kept in mind - people that know the game inside out but always keep this other audience in mind that knows nothing about the game, maybe hasn't played a video game since Pac-Man or something. And then all the time that we save - let's focus on character drama and relationships and these more quiet moments in a way that we couldn't have done in the game. So those were easy to just take out and remove. Now, if we were to port those over - and I think that sometimes the mistake of these adaptations - they would make for, I think, pretty boring action sequences when you just watch them and you don't play them. And that's a way in gaming to get you to connect with the character. And you have to do enough of it to get a mastery of mechanics. But then with the game, the interactive element requires a certain amount of action that you as the player are committing.

There are certain things with the game that are unique and captivating and we knew we wanted to bring over wholesale, including the rough outline of the journey of Joel and Ellie. And these characters in the story mean so much to them that it would break our heart and our fans' hearts to do a poor adaptation of this. Druckmann was the creative director behind that, too, so he knew he and his collaborators had to get this story correct.ĭRUCKMANN: You know, 'The Last Of Us' has millions of fans out there. SUMMERS: Neil Druckmann is an executive producer of 'The Last Of Us.' And if this story sounds familiar, that's because it adapts a celebrated video game with the same title. And he's hoping to find some sort of cure for this thing.

NEIL DRUCKMANN: So much of the world is the story of Joel Miller, this black market smuggler who has to cross the country with Ellie, this teenage girl that he's been assigned to deliver to this group called the Fireflies.

SUMMERS: 'The Last Of Us' takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a brain fungus has turned most people into zombies. RAMSEY: (As Bella Ramsey) Somewhere out west, they're working on a cure. PEDRO PASCAL: (As Joel Miller) If I'm taking you with me, you do what I say when I say it.īELLA RAMSEY: (As Ellie) If you don't think there's hope for the world, why bother going on?ĪNNA TROV: (As Tess) You have a greater purpose than any of us could have ever imagined. What happens when an infectious disease sparks a pandemic and sends the whole world into a tailspin - well, besides the last three years? A new series from HBO imagines something much darker.

Druckmann the last of us