Movies
Why Naughty Dog Director Doesn’t Want Direct ‘The Last of Us’ Film Adaptation
A feature film adaptation of Naughty Dog’s survival-horror game The Last of Us has been talked about pretty much since the game came out back in 2013, with Screen Gems announcing that they were developing one less than a year after the cinematic game was released. At one point, Sam Raimi was even attached to the project as producer.
But we haven’t heard much about the planned adaptation in recent years. For the best, says Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, who co-directed the video game. Druckmann himself had worked on the script for the Screen Gems project; reflecting on the project years later, however, he now hopes that the script never makes it to the screen.
Druckmann explained why at DICE Summit 2018, via Screen Daily.
“Even I worked on the script for The Last of Us film, which was a direct adaptation,” Druckmann explained. “And now, having some separation from it, I look back and [am] like, ‘I don’t want that movie to be made.’”
He continued, “Maybe there’s something that could be done in the world, either focusing on other characters or other time. But, for me, and I know for Naughty Dog and for a lot of our fans… Ashley Johnson is Ellie, Troy Baker is Joel. And it would be very disorienting to see someone else in [those roles].”
So it sounds like if Druckmann has his way, The Last of Us will get its own movie, though not one that’s a direct adaptation of the game… as originally planned.
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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