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‘The Last Of Us’: Jasmila Žbanić & Ali Abbasi To Direct HBO Series Based On Video Game

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Oscar nominee Jasmila Žbanić (Quo vadis, Aida) and Ali Abbasi (Border) have been added as directors on The Last of Us, HBO’s high-profile series adaptation of the Sony Playstation franchise from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann.

Based on the critically acclaimed video game The Last of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel (Pascal), a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie (Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.


Kantemir Balagov is directing the pilot episode of The Last Of Us, a co-production with Sony Pictures Television. PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint, and Naughty Dog produce the TV series, based on the video game developed by Naughty Dog exclusively for the PlayStation platforms.

Druckmann and Mazin write and executive produce; Carolyn Strauss also executive produces along with Naughty Dog president Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan of PlayStation Productions as well as Rose Lam.




TONS of talent going into this show.
They might fuck around and drop the best horror-drama-action fusion show of all time :messenger_weary: :messenger_sunglasses:

Hope it goes past TLOU 2 story, ends on a cliffhanger, and we play out the conclusion in TLOU 3.
GOAT shit.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
Sounds like they are really putting together a stellar cast and team behind it. I REALLY hope they knock it out of the park. I have my big qualms with the direction of TLOU2, but I absolutely love the universe and setting/tone. I can't wait to see some of the situations they can come up with Clickers.
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Walking Dead has been a guilty pleasure and holds a special place in my heart, been watching that shit from Day 1.

But its ending at the perfect time.
 
Wish they'd just continue this IP in film format only. Then maybe ND could make a real videogame for once instead of an interactive film. Played through all of TLOU2 recently and wasn't impressed, coming from DeS right before that.
 
I'd rather HBO just make a big budget zombie show. I never felt the story of TLOU was that compelling. The further they deviate away from the game, the more I'll be interested.
 

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
Pascal I can sorta see. Bella is a great get though. They both have the genre chops though so that should be good for the niche fans.

. . .they better not give Pascal a white daughter though or non-South American brother. That would be silly.

I'd rather HBO just make a big budget zombie show. I never felt the story of TLOU was that compelling. The further they deviate away from the game, the more I'll be interested.

I mean, "zombies" really isn't "the point. . ." of TLOU - in my opinion of course.
 
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I mean, "zombies" really isn't "the point. . ." of TLOU - in my opinion of course.
A good backdrop for post-apocalyptic human drama, pretty much like The Walking Dead. It's not the point, but it's a good background set up for action and survival drama.
 

Mr Hyde

Member
I saw Ali Abbasis Border when it showed on cinema a couple of years ago. Great stuff. Hopefully he and that other director can do The Last of Us justice.
 
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HTK

Banned
I'm not sure about the other director but Jasmina Žbanić (Quo vadis, Aida) is really good, but I'm a bit biased since she's from my neck of the woods. My interest in this just went up 1000% from zero. I'm excited.
 
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Ellery

Member
It is so damn great that we get TLOU turned into a TV show and it looks to be genuine quality content.

I know it is going to take at least another year or two, but I am already excited for it !
 

Entroyp

Member
MUf98Lk.gif
 
They should have gotten Frank Durabont to write and direct. He's the guy who made season 1 of The Walking Dead so amazing and the reason no season since then has approached the same level of writing quality.
 

Great Hair

Banned
I still believe they picked the wrong cast, people. The poor girl looks like a grumpy old woman all the time and the guy who wants to show his face and cant grow a proper mustache ...

Make a CGI movie, tv show with the game assets, characters instead and give the voice-dub-actors the job you dumb, lazy kants! If Squaresoft could do it using shitty single core 233mhz intel machines back in 2001, why cant any company do it now with 128 threads and SLI 3090s?!

Take a Pixar Seminar and make an Uncharted 4 CGI Film ..
I Dont GIF
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
I have no fucking idea who these people are, but if GAF says they're talented that's fantastic. I hope the show is incredible.
 

mckmas8808

Banned



TONS of talent going into this show.
They might fuck around and drop the best horror-drama-action fusion show of all time :messenger_weary: :messenger_sunglasses:

Hope it goes past TLOU 2 story, ends on a cliffhanger, and we play out the conclusion in TLOU 3.
GOAT shit.


That would be MCU level AWESOME! Drop 2 seasons of TLOU on HBO and then hit us with a TLOU3 videogame at the end of the PS5 generation!
 

Astral Dog

Member
I still believe they picked the wrong cast, people. The poor girl looks like a grumpy old woman all the time and the guy who wants to show his face and cant grow a proper mustache ...

Make a CGI movie, tv show with the game assets, characters instead and give the voice-dub-actors the job you dumb, lazy kants! If Squaresoft could do it using shitty single core 233mhz intel machines back in 2001, why cant any company do it now with 128 threads and SLI 3090s?!

Take a Pixar Seminar and make an Uncharted 4 CGI Film ..
I Dont GIF
CG show is not gonna sell HBO, they would have gone to Netflix for that (like the upcoming Resident Evil, Dragons Dogma or Castlevania)

Im guessing they want to do it this way because Naughty Dog has the ambition for TLoUs to be the next Walking Dead, not only appeal to fans of the game but every zombie genre afficionado 🧟‍♂️ and become a huge hit.
 
Incredibly proud of my Bosnian countrywoman (even though she lives in Germany now) Jasmila Žbanić. She won Golden Bear in Berlin for “Grbavica” some years ago and is second best favorite for Oscars this year. We’re very small and dysfunctional country but this brings smile on your face. To be frank, it also probably has something to do with her being a woman director, she was doing wonderful stuff way before woman directors were trendy.

❤️ 🇧🇦
 
I don't know who either of those two people are but here's to hoping for another successful video game adaptation. MK 2021, RE Netflix series....thanks Sonic for lighting the torch back up!

Wonder if they re-face Ellie and Joel in the Tlou1 remake game to the actors of the show.

They don't want a repeat of the fallout (might've just been a vocal minority tho) of the Spiderman remastered stuff when they swapped for Tom Holland's face, so probably not.
 
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Atrus

Gold Member
They're going to be filming in and around where I live so there should be plenty of good scenescapes to digitally image into ruinporn. No colonial Boston buildings but plenty of prairies, mountains, forests, and small towns to suit all sorts of places.

I've got high hopes for this show.
 
Pascal I can sorta see. Bella is a great get though. They both have the genre chops though so that should be good for the niche fans.

. . .they better not give Pascal a white daughter though or non-South American brother. That would be silly.



I mean, "zombies" really isn't "the point. . ." of TLOU - in my opinion of course.
Zombie fiction is almost always about people rather that actual zombies.
 
Ok, Jasmina Žbanić is from my country so I'm kinda proud to be honest 😎 We don't get such recognition often.

I'm mildly interested in the show so let's see how this works out.
Samo lagano! :D

Yup, this is a huge thing, Jasmila is a great director, she certainly knows how to direct tension so I have high hopes for this!
 

yurinka

Member
I have no idea who they are. But I assume that if they have been nominated for the Oscars they may be good.
 

Shmunter

Member
Looking forward to it. The budget is key here, and significantly higher than the B grade The Witcher no doubt.

Could be huge.
 

Billbofet

Member
This fits right in with HBO's dominance in the misery drama genre which they recently took the mantle over from Netflix.
I'll for sure check it out, but HBO - at least lately - is like a library of well-produced sadness.
 
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