You’d think it would be fairly easy to turn Naughty Dog’s games into movies – Uncharted and The Last of Us are so cinematic you’d just have to swap out the polygonal characters for real-life actors and you’d be set, right? That’s probably what Sony hoped, but apparently things aren’t so simple, as Naughty Dog’s head writer Neil Druckmann has unfortunately revealed the planned The Last of Us and Uncharted movies are currently mired in development hell.
When we first heard about The Last of Us movie back in 2014, the project sounded pretty promising. The movie was going to be produced by Sam Raimi and was widely rumored to star Maisie Williams of Game of Thrones fame. So, what’s happened since then? According to Druckmann, not much.
“I said in an interview a while back we had a table read, got the script to a good place and it kind of entered development hell like these things tend to do. There hasn’t been any work done on it in over a year and a half.”
Meanwhile, an Uncharted movie is something Sony has been trying to make happen for years, and as of now the studio is still sticking to a June 30, 2017, release for the movie, a date Druckmann doesn’t seem very confident in…
“Every once in a while they’ll come in and they’ll present to us. We’ll tell them what we think works, what we think doesn’t work. That’s where we’re at. Last I heard is they got a new screenwriter, but we haven’t seen anything in a while.”
There’s still good news though – movies based on The Last of Us and Uncharted remain “in the works,” we just may be waiting awhile for them.
It’s disappointing to hear these projects are progressing so slowly, but at the same time, it’s good to hear Sony is being careful with these properties and involving Naughty Dog in the process. Uncharted could easily be the next Indiana Jones if done right, and The Last of Us could be a legit critical darling. The first video game movie to win an Oscar potentially. So yeah, I’m willing to wait if it means a better end product.
Speaking of products, Naughty Dog’s next big game, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, hits shelves May 10.
(Via IGN)