An Alfonso Cuarón film inspired ‘The Last of Us’

We are just a few days away from seeing the first episode of the new HBO series The Last of Usadaptation of the video game released in 2013 of the same title starring Peter Pascal in the role of Joel, and Bella Ramsey like Ellie. There is a lot of anticipation for its release due to the bad reputation that video game adaptations have for formats such as film and television, but creator Craig Mazin assures that this will not be the case, since they put all of them into the project.

After having created the Chernobyl miniseries in 2019 (also from the same production house), Neil Druckmann, the creator of The Last of Usonce again found a ray of hope to adapt his video game into a television series after being scorned by director George Romero a few years ago. Druckmann was inspired by the video game icon PlayStation 2 and John Hartigan, the protagonist of Sin Cityto develop the story of a man who loses his daughter and a daughter who loses her father, who form a team.

Also game designer as Uncharted, Druckmann elaborated his story of survival in a post-apocalyptic world, but with a much deeper, emotional and human background.unlike other zombie titles like resident Evil. He mentions that movies like children of men of Alfonso Cuarón and city ​​of thieves by David Benioff (creator and screenwriter of game of Thrones) were some of the works that inspired him to position the relevance of sentimental ties between people in the face of a decadent and bleak scenario.

“We wanted to do something very different from resident Evilwhich I love but it’s very exaggerated, and you fight against giant spiders and it’s all about the variety of enemies,” Druckmann explained in an interview for The Hollywood Reporter. “What if we focused on intimate relationships, an exploration of the unconditional love a father has for his daughter and the beautiful and horrible things that can come out of it?”.

The Last of Us It was close to becoming a film directed by Sam Raimi, director of the horror classic evil dead, but had trouble adapting 15 hours of gameplay into a feature film. Inclusive Neil Druckmann faced criticism from studios who asked that his work have more action scenes like World War Zwhich was completely opposite to the narrative tone of his video gamewhere there is a perfect balance between drama and violence, as well as the presentation of an endearing story that involves an extremely warm human bond.

Next Sunday, January 15, the first chapter of The Last of Us at 8:00 PM (Mexico City time) on HBO. This title is one of the most anticipated releases of 2023; Gustavo Santaolalla returns to create the soundtrack for the series after having produced the one for the video games in 2013 and 2020. Is it possible that Craig Mazin ends the curse of bad adaptations? We will know in a few days.