HBO's The Last of Us is set to premiere later this month, but before the network commissioned a series based on the best-selling Naughty Dog video game, a big screen version with Sam Raimi attached to direct was in development.
Creator Neil Drukkman and the Evil Dead filmmaker were working on the project with Screen Gems, but they struggled to compress the game’s roughly 15 hours of play into a feature-length narrative.
“Sam gave really solid notes, but it was an impossible task,” Druckmann tells THR. They were also "told to add more spectacular action set pieces," and Druckmann began to realize that the studio really didn't understand what made the game so special.
Thankfully, the film was scrapped - although fans will likely be very interested to learn that Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart) were in talks to play Ellie! It sounds like both actresses may still have been in contention for the role in the HBO show, but had "aged out" by the time casting was underway.
Williams' Game of Thrones castmate Bella Ramsey would ultimately land the part alongside Pedro Pascal as Joel.
What do you guys make of this revelation? Would you have preferred to see either Williams or Dever as Ellie? Drop us a comment down below.