HBO is working on a small-screen adaptation of Naughty Dog’s award-winning zombie game The Last of Us—and Kantemir Balagov (Beanpole) will direct the pilot.
Johan Renck (Chernobyl) was previously attached to direct, but that’s no longer happening. However, another member of the Chernobyl team, Craig Mazin, is developing the project for HBO and will co-write the series with Neil Druckmann, the game’s original creator and writer.
Set 20 years after modern civilisation has been destroyed, the series—which adapts the first The Last of Us game—will follow Joel, a hardened survivor, after he is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. But what starts as a small job quickly becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey as the pair traverse across the U.S. and come to depend on one another for survival.
Words: Samantha McLaren (@themeatispeople)
