Back in March, Chernobyl series creator and writer Craig Mazin and game director Neil Druckmann announced that they would be working together on a live-action television series adaptation of The Last of Us for the HBO network.
There hasn't been much development since then — which is understandable given the current state of the world at large. The Last of Us composer Gustavo Santaolalla will reprise his role for the HBO series, Mazin insisted that Ellie won't be "straightwashed," and Unbelievable star Kaitlyn Dever made it clear that she "would absolutely love to" play Ellie in the series — more on that here.
Finally, though, there's some more news to do with HBO's live-action The Last of Us series. Johan Renck is an Emmy Award-winning director who is best known for his work on Chernobyl, Breaking Bad, Bates Motel, and Vikings. In a recent interview with Discussing Film, Renck revealed that he's involved with HBO's The Last of Us series.
He's on-board as an executive producer but, what's more, he will also serve as director for at least the series' first episode. Of course, there's also a chance that he will direct further episodes — as he explained:
"I'm an executive producer on it and attached to it. It's an ongoing TV series. So that's not something that I will be able to take on to that extent, but I'm part of that series, and I will be directing at least the pilot. Then we'll see how it goes on further. I mean, both Craig and I, we are working with each other again, and we will work with each other on other things because we like each other."
Renck also spoke about the difference between adapting a pre-existing character from visual media versus a historical one or one originating from a page. "You have a video game character who's very much top of mind with anybody who's ever played that game. More than that, they know exactly what he looks like, how he talks, how he acts, and so on and so forth."
It sounds as if they're going to make sure that the adaptation's version of Joel is one-for-one with his video game counterpart. Presumably, the same goes for Ellie and perhaps every other character.