Since the inception of HBO’s television adaptation of PlayStation’s beloved video game, The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s own writer and director of the game, Neil Druckmann, has been closely involved with the project. Druckmann himself has been one of the executive producers and writers of the series alongside Craig Mazin, who previously worked on HBO’s Chernobyl. However, thanks to a new leak of information, it looks as though Druckmann will actually be finding himself behind the camera at one point during production and has now been named one of the directors on the series as well.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Mentioned in a new document from DGC (Directors Guild of Canada), Druckmann was mentioned as a director for The Last of Us. While specifics regarding how many episodes he might direct weren’t given, his name was mentioned alongside Craig Mazin, Peter Hoar, Kantemir Balagov, and Jasmila Zbanic as some of the other directors that will be rotating in throughout the course of the series. Production as a whole is said to have also started in July of this year (which we knew), while filming is said to be wrapping up by June 2022.
While it might be surprising to see Druckmann direct a TV series given that he has never done so before, he absolutely has familiarity with the process given how The Last of Us itself was made. Essentially, all of the cutscenes that were seen in The Last of Us were directed by Druckmann. Even though the manner by which he directed was a bit different given that the performances were done via motion capture, he’s still very much used to working with actors in this way.
For now, the biggest thing that we continue to not know about with The Last of Us comes with its debut on HBO. At this point in time, HBO hasn’t said anything about when the series might first begin to air. That being said, it seems likely that the first episodes will start to come out at some point in 2022, assuming that everything goes well.
What do you think about Druckmann now serving as a director on HBO’s The Last of Us? Do you think he’ll be a good fit for the series? Let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
