Neil Druckmann (‘The Last of Us’): “There are things that work in one format but are stupid in another”

Neil Druckmann has been with video game studio Naughty Dog since 2004, working as a programmer. A few years later he made the leap to writing in the first installments of “Uncharted”. But it was in 2013 that he established himself as one of the most promising creatives in the video game industry. That year came “The Last of Us” to PlayStation 3, a terror-tinged apocalyptic adventure that ended up winning so many Game of the Year awards that it would take a warehouse to place them all. Critics and audiences alike were wowed by the powerful story of Joel and Ellie, which is now being made into an ambitious television series by HBO. “It’s a little intimidating to do a series for HBO. You have to create something that can match ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Watchmen’ or ‘The Leftovers’. Some of the best stories are on HBO. Add to that the pressure from the love people have for the source material.” comments in our chat with him weeks before the premiere of the first episode.

Adapting such an acclaimed game and not destroying the franchise that cost you so much to create is, without a doubt, quite a challenge. But Druckmann knows exactly what the problem is with many movies or series whose basis is a video game: “When you adapt a game to first person, you think you need to introduce a first person scene or show something that’s a reference to the game. There are things that work in one format but are stupid in another”. Much of the work he and Craig Mazin, creator of ‘Chernobyl’ and co-showrunner of ‘The Last of Us’, has done has been “deciding what to keep because it might work as it is in the series and there was no reason to change it, but it was just as important to reject what works very well in an interactive medium but would be boring in a series”, as Druckmann tells us. For instance: “We don’t need to show workbenches or Joel sneak killing someone. that wasn’t important”. The important thing, he underlines, is the story.

The series adapts the first video game in the saga and the added content released shortly after, “Left Behind”, which shows us Ellie (Bella Ramsey) before her life intersects with that of Joel (Pedro Pascal). And while he expands some storylines and tweaks what’s needed to fit the new format, Neil Druckmann has made sure he has his own entity: “This season is the adaptation of the first video game and, like the video game, is a story of its own. If we hadn’t made another game it would have been a nice ending. So we treated this season too”. While he doesn’t rule out the possibility that HBO wants more from “The Last of Us” (the video game has an equally award-winning sequel continuing the story), it’s clear there’s no room in his head for the spin-off or derivatives. at the moment: “We don’t want to drag out the series as long as possible so that it will be successful for a long time. We just want to tailor a specific material. Craig and I have the same philosophy: we need to know what the ending is so we can write the rest. There must always be a destination. That’s how we treated this season, and if we do it again we’ll treat it the same way.”.

Marlene in the video game and series

We also got to talk to Merle Dandridge, who is privileged to have gone from pixel to live action playing Marlene, leader of the Fireflies, in the series after making it in the video game. The Fireflies are considered a group of terrorists because they face the military regime that prevails in the post-apocalyptic Boston of the series. Marlene and her crew try to bring down the army’s leadership, but maybe they’ve gotten too short on them when it comes to violence. She the actress she appreciates having been able to recreate, this time away from chroma and motion capture, “the important moments that forge Marlene’s moral umbrella”. As for the change of format, it emphasizes that its goal “It wasn’t so much getting to know Marlene as discovering what Merle is about Marlene”. And unlike Druckmann, she would be very interested in digging a little deeper into Marlene and the Fireflies, to the point where the creator of the game admits: “If it’s a Marlene spin-off, I’d be OK with it”. Returning to the series, he has no doubts that a success is on the way: “When you work with writers with this sensitivity and care, you know you’ve embarked on a journey that is going to be beautiful, that will be portrayed in a fantastic way. I think fans of the game will feel that love and new viewers will meet one of the greatest writers of our time: Neil Druckmann!”.

‘The Last of Us’ begins its broadcast on HBO Max Spain on Monday January 16th and will release a weekly episode.