HBO has been working to develop a series based on the 2013 video game The Last of Us with Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin. The network has taken the next step and has officially ordered the project to series.
The game is a third-person survival horror game, in which the player moves across a post-apocalyptic landscape trying to evade fungi-infected creatures that are trying to eat them. The story takes place 20 years after a widespread outbreak decimates the U.S., and follows two smugglers, Joel and Tess as they work to survive in Massachusetts. They’re hired to smuggle a 14-year-old girl named Ellie out of the quarantine zone who might hold the key to a cure for the illness.
Shortly after the game was released in 2013, Screen Gems was working on a movie adaptation of the project, with Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann tapped to write the screenplay, and with Maisie Williams (of Game of Thrones fame) tapped to play Ellie. However, that adaptation fell through.
Earlier this year, word broke that HBO was trying its hand at an adaptation, with Druckmann and Mazin set to write the series. There’s no word on when the project will enter production, or who will be cast, but HBO says that the series will be available on both HBO and the streaming service HBO Max.
