The creator of HBO’s “Chernobyl” is adapting the hit post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us for a new HBO series. Craig Mazin is teaming up with the game’s creative director Neil Druckmann for the adaptation.
Neil Druckmann is without question the finest storyteller working in the video game medium, and The Last of Us is his magnum opus,” Mazin states. “Getting a chance to adapt this breathtaking work of art has been a dream of mine for years.”
The first season will cover the events of the first game, which was released in 2013. It follows Joel and Ellie in the post-apocalyptic US. Joel lost his family twenty years before the game. He’s a smuggler and is given the task of getting 14-year-old Ellie to the Fireflies, a group of rebels. The game, from Naughty Dog, puts a fresh spin on the zombie genre and uses Cordyceps fungus instead of the zombie virus we see so much of.
What are Cordyceps? It’s a parasitic fungus, infect insects, turning them into real-life zombies by controlling its host’s actions in the name of spreading its spores. After the host dies the fungus branches out of the creature to form arms so that its spores can infect its next unsuspecting victim.
Mazin has already confirmed the news and that the expansion pack reveal (Ellie being a lesbian) will be featured as part of the storyline.
Sony Pictures Television is also involved, as is PlayStation Productions. This will be the debut series for PlayStation.
The Last of Us: Part II comes out this May.
