If you think that the current prevalence of Zombies in both television and film is overwhelming, this piece of news is unlikely to change your mind. With the popularity of recent Zombie vehicles such as ZOMBIELAND, THE WALKING DEAD and WORLD WAR Z, it seems that the public aren’t tiring of flesh eating corpses just yet.
Now it has been announced that last years highly acclaimed video game THE LAST OF US, will be heading to the big screen courtesy of Screen Gems. The screenplay for the live action adaption is currently being written by Neil Druckmann, who was also the creative director of the original Playstation 3 game. This news should please fans of the source material and hopefully set the film apart from the overloaded market of Zombie orientated media.
The plot of the game centred around Joel and Ellie as the survivors of a global pandemic that took place twenty years prior to the story. The game followed their journey through a Zombie infected world focussing on their daily life and death decisions in order to survive. THE LAST OF US will also be produced by Evan Wells, Christophe Balestra and Bruce Straley on behalf of the games’ original developers Naughty Dog. Sam Raimi will also (appropriately) produce the film under his ‘Ghost House Pictures’ production company, which hopefully means that the EVIL DEAD directors influence will be felt in some form.
You can read what Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper had to say on the upcoming film below:
‘Screen Gems’ Brian Dukes and Eric Ling brought this game to my attention, insisting we go after it. When I saw the quality of the storytelling, I knew the audience for this project was far greater than just the gaming community and that Neil Druckmann must write the screenplay. I am thrilled that Sony Computer Entertainment America’s Riley Russell was able to get me in front of Neil and Evan Wells to plead my case. And Sam and his team at Ghost House round out the perfect team to help realize Neil’s vision’.
With the immense success of THE WALKING DEAD and Screen Gems’ own RESIDENT EVIL franchise, this news comes as no surprise. Hopefully THE LAST OF US will stand out as a compelling character drama rather than yet another bland, overly gory horror film but only time will tell. Check back with us for more updates on THE LAST OF US.
Source: THR
