The Last of Us will finally debut on HBO next week and despite some of the recent cost-cutting behind the scenes at Warner Bros. Discovery in the last few months there has seemingly been no expense spared on the horror series. While no exact numbers were revealed, The New Yorker reported at that the Pedro Pascal-led series had a production budget “upward of $100 million”, which is greater than that of each of Game of Thrones’ first five seasons.
While there is a lot of risk in bringing a popular video game franchise to a TV series or movie format, recently there have been more good adaptations than bad, with notable exceptions. Currently, everything seems to be pointing to The Last of Us being another hit adaptation, but to be truly successful the show needs to be able to capture the attention of general viewers as well as fans of the Playstation games.
According to the footage revealed, recent images and the word of creator Neil Druckmann, who co-writes and co-produces the series with Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin, The Last of Us will not deviate too much from the original 2013 video game. That in itself can only be a good thing, as huge changes, such as those seen in Netflix’s recent Resident Evil series, don’t always work in a show’s favour and only serve to alienate a core demographic of the audience. However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any surprises for those who know the games well.
The Last of Us Will Feature Moments Cut From the Games
Just like movies and TV shows, video games that have an expansive narrative behind them can always leave something on the cutting room floor. The Last of Us is no exception, and Craig Mazin has already teased at least one “jaw drop” moment will be included in the series that was left out of the original game. He previously teased his reaction to the “new” material.
"Jaw drop - that's going in. For sure, we have to do that. You couldn't stop me doing that. You will have to shoot me [to stop me] from doing that. And there were a few things like that."
Mazin also assured fans that there will be nothing in the series that makes them feel like the video game has been “violated.” He added:
"If you have played the game, our intention is that you will watch the show and say 'this has violated nothing of what I loved about the game, and what I witnessed in the game, but it has also brought me a whole lot more - things I did not know, really amazing things'.”
With HBO clearly putting a lot of effort and money into The Last of Us, it is almost time to see whether it all paid off. Game fans are certainly hyped for the arrival of the show, but the main challenge for the series is to grip newcomers at a time when horror franchises are popping up around every corner. The Last of Us will make its debut on HBO on January 15.