In March of 2014 Screen Gems, a division of Sony Pictures, announced that they would be producing a film adaptation of Naughty Dog Game, The Last of Us. The screenplay was written and to be co-produced by Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, who was the creative director for the game release. The list of producers for this project also was to include Sam Raimi and his Ghost House Pictures company, Naughty Dog Co-Presidents’ Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, and Game Director Bruce Straley. Further down the road there was rumor of actress Maisie Williams, perhaps best known for her role as Arya Stark in HBO’s Game of Thrones, joining the the project as a possible lead casting option.

Unfortunately for fans, in April of this year we received some unfortunate news from writer and producer Neil Druckmann.

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. There hasn’t been any work done on it in over a year and a half.

More recently, we have received further news on the project from producer Sam Raimi. At a press lunch for the upcoming home video release of Don’t Breathe, Raimi made statements in an attempt to dissect the current situation of the film adaptation project for The Last of Us. Raimi’s statement on the whole ordeal is as follows:

Well, unfortunately that one — when we went to Neil with Ghost House Pictures we were hoping to get the rights like we do any project and then we’d take it out and sell it but we’d control the rights. With this one he went to Sony — who I have a very good relationship with — but they have their own plans for it and I think Neil’s plan for it — I’m not trying to be political — Neil’s plan for it is not the same as Sony’s. And because my company doesn’t have the rights, I actually can’t help him too much. Even though I’m one of the producers on it the way he set it up, he sold his rights to Sony, Sony hired me as a producer by chance, and I can’t get the rights free for him so I’m not in the driver’s seat and I can’t tell you what Sony and Neil together will decide on. If they do move forward I’d love to help them again.

Unfortunately, this is not the most reassuring news and doesn’t give fans much to go on in regards to speculating whether the project is ever going to get off the ground or not. Although the project seems to be at a standstill due to situations and/or possible conflict of creative direction it seems all the players are still on board for the project should it ever begin to move forward again. Sam Raimi did give reassurances that he is still absolutely on board for production.

Yes, I’m attached to it. I’m not too sure what that means. Right now it’s just sitting there. They don’t want to move forward, and it’s not my place to say why, and Neil, I think, is in a slight disagreement with them about how things should go so there’s a standstill. And I don’t have the power to move it.

Sadly at this time it’s looking pretty bleak in regards to seeing The Last of Us on the silver screen any time soon, but you never know. Until more information is released there is sadly not much fans can do other than hope for a quick resolution for whatever might be holding the project back. We here at Don’t Feed the Gamers will be sure to keep you up to speed on any news regarding The Last of Us Movie. In the meantime, check out this exciting news about another popular  video game to movie adaptation!