HBO’s series adaptation The Last of Us has no intentions to adapt anything that is not directly apart of the games, according to ComicBook. The Last of Us was one of the greatest video games of the last decade, and was neatly adapted into a movie with Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead) behind the camera, however, it crumbled and eventually adapted into an HBO television series.
According to ComicBook, the first season of the show will adapt the entire first game and expand on it a little bit.
“We have no plans to tell any stories beyond adapting the games,” says creator Neil Druckmann (Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Jak 3) via The Gamer. “We won’t run into the same issue as Game of Thrones since Part II doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.”
Druckmann has more of an extensive role in the production of the show than George R. R. Martin (House of the Dragon, Elden Ring) did in the production of Game of Thrones‘ newer seasons. Any original stories told within HBO’s The Last of Us would be coming straight from the source.
Game of Thrones’ show exceeded the books, so, in turn, the writers had to make up the story for the last couple of seasons, including the ending, which did not pan out so well for the show.
“I don’t have any interest in a spinning-plates-go-on-forever show. When it becomes a perpetual motion machine, it just can’t help but get kind of … stupid. Endings mean everything to me,” showrunner Craig Mazin (Chernobyl, The Hangover Part II) said.
Mazin noted that he does not want to drag the show out for the sake of attempting to make it long-running, which we can assume means that the second season of the show will possibly leap right into The Last of Us Part II‘s storyline.
“When you’re playing a section, you’re killing people, and when you die you get sent back to the checkpoint. All those people are back, moving around in the same way,” said Mazin via Forbes. “At a certain point, they read as obstacles, not as human beings. In the show, such encounters would carry more weight: Watching a person die, I think, ought to be much different than watching pixels die.”
The Last of Us will make its debut to the television medium on January 15, 2023, on HBO.