The Last of Us
There was a general sense in The Last of Us season 2 that Craig Mazin was taking the show and character of Ellie in strange directions, and only when The Last of Us game co-creator Neil Druckmann stepped in did things get better.
Well, a new report from The Ankler says that Druckmann is leaving The Last of Us season 3 entirely and will hand everything over to Mazin now. Here’s what Druckmann told The Ankler:
“I’ve made the difficult decision to step away from my creative involvement in The Last of Us on HBO. With work completed on season two and before any meaningful work starts on season three, now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, along with my responsibilities as studio head and head of creative,” Druckmann said in a statement to The Ankler about his decision, which he planned to share with Naughty Dog staff Wednesday.
“Co-creating the show has been a career highlight. It’s been an honor to work alongside Craig Mazin to executive produce, direct and write on the last two seasons. I’m deeply thankful of the thoughtful approach and dedication the talented cast and crew took to adapting The Last of Us Part I and their continued adaptation of The Last of Us Part II. I look forward to HBO and PlayStation Productions continuing Ellie and Abby’s story next season.”
The Last of Us
While it’s understandable that Druckmann needs to shift his focus to the enormous AAA video game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, this leaves the Emmy-winning HBO series in a tough spot, given how unsteady Mazin has been with the source material the characters. Mazin has said that it will take at least two more seasons in order to finish out The Last of Us Part II. There are not any reported creative differences between the duo, just that Druckmann has responsibilities at Naughty Dog, it seems.
The Last of Us is about to enter a tough new era where it will be at least two years from now that the show will return, and do so without the core cast as it focuses on the just-introduced character of Abby for what is likely to be almost all of season 3. This is how the game worked, yes, but with TV being a different format and these expansive breaks between seasons, it’s a big issue. Then, we’ll have another season another 2-2.5 years after that, it seems.
This isn’t good news. Not that Mazin can’t make good seasons by himself, but Druckmann was clearly a big part of why the series worked, especially in season 1 and in his limited episodes in season 2. Things look shaky from here.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.