More information has begun to surface about HBO series The Last of Us. We’ve learnt that the show will directly lift dialogue from the original game, says executive producer Neil Druckmann, but will see some episodes “deviate greatly” from the events we’ve played previously. The Last of Us is the first of several planned PlayStation adaptations into film and television, and with both Ellie and Joel’s roles cast, one of the biggest questions remains how closely will the HBO series adhere to the original’s story.
Executive producer Neil Druckmann, spoke about his teams approach to adapting the original game;
“We talked at length [that season 1 of the show is going to be [the first game],” Druckmann explained, noting that for him and Mazin, “the philosophical underpinnings of the story” were the essential thing to get right about the adaptation. “As far as the superficial things, like should [a character] wear the same plaid shirt or the same red shirt? They might or might not appear in it, that’s way less important to us than getting the core of who these people are and the core of their journey.”
“Things sometimes stay pretty close. It’s funny to see my dialogue there from the games in HBO scripts. And sometimes they deviate greatly to much better effect because we are dealing with a different medium,” he said. “For example, in the game, there’s so much action you have to have to train the player about mechanics. You have to have more violence and more spectacle to some degree than you would need on a TV show because you don’t need to train people on how to use a gun. So that’s something that’s been really different, and HBO’s been great in pushing us to move away from hardcore action and focus more on the drama of the character. Some of my favorite episodes so far have deviated greatly from the story, and I can’t wait for people to see them.”