It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were writing about how having original game creator Neil Druckmann scribing the film adaptation of game The Last of Us should mean that we might actually get a true game to film adaptation. It turns out that we were counting our chickens a little early as news has reached us today that the film will differ to the record-breaking game.
The movie which is being produced by Sami Raimi is currently at the scripting stage with Druckmann frantically trying to piece together a coherent story. Which speaking to MCV he admitted the problem he has encountered is that the story of the fifteen hour long game will be too hard to squish into a film run time of two hours.
“In two hours you can’t tell the same kind of story that you can in a game like The Last of Us, which is 15 hours. I’m in the middle of it now, and it’s been super difficult because there’s so much that happens in The Last of Us – even just in the cinematics – that can’t fit in a film, let alone all the gameplay in-between and dialogue.”
This isn’t a new revelation in the adaptation world though as it happens to books all the time. What Druckman has decided to focus on is the relationship between the two leads Ellie and Joel stating that he will “Start with those, and cut everything else out”. Hacking chunks of a story that already feels complete is proving rather difficult with him going onto say:
“It’s been really difficult to cut certain things out, but what I’m starting to get is this really focused narrative that’s about these two characters.”
He also verified that whilst some moments from the game will be kept a lot will change:
“Some parts will be similar to the game and some parts will be quite different, but it’s kind of interesting in helping me understand this other medium and its strengths compared to video games.”
Even the ending isn’t certain with Druckmann revealing at Comic Con that he wanted to change the ending entirely – though Raimi is reluctant to deviate too far from the original ending.
It would seem that Druckmann’s heart is in the right place as he works on converting the story from one medium to another, but we just hope he doesn’t stray too far from the source material as that is what the fans fell in love with.
Source: MCV
