Excitement for a movie adaptation of Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed game The Last of Us started early, with rumors that Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams was being looked at to play the role of Ellie.
While Williams is definitely still interested in the role, the film is currently in limbo. The project doesn't have a director or a final script as of yet. Naughty Dog game director Neil Druckmann, the man responsible for writing the script for The Last of Us movie, offered the following update on the project to IGN:
"I know 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," Druckmann says. "There hasn't been any work done on it in over a year and a half."
That's certainly not good news for fans hoping to see the film sooner rather than later. In the meantime, work continues on an adaptation of Naughty Dog's other popular franchise, Uncharted. Druckmann also had an update about that film as well, saying the developers at Naughty Dog aren't as closely involved with the project as some might think.
"Every once in a while they'll come in and they'll present to us: here's the script, here's what we're thinking," Druckmann says. "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."
He goes on to say the most important part of the Uncharted movie is the relationship between heroes Nathan Drake, Elena and Sullivan.
"Our approach is just to steer them back to those relationships," he says. "The most important part to get right is Nathan Drake, Nathan Drake's relationship with Elena and Nathan Drake's relationship with Sullivan. If you don't get that right, I don't think the film's going to work. If you get that core right, there's a chance it could work."
Video game movies don't have a great reputation, but if any developer would knock the trend and help deliver some standout movies based on their works, leave it to Naughty Dog.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will be released exclusively for PlayStation 4 on May 10.
