'The Last of Us' movie stuck at a standstill says Sam Raimi

BY JIM VEJVODA I attended a press lunch today for the upcoming home video release of Don't Breathe, during which time I was able to ask producer Sam Raimi about the status of the big screen version of the hit video game The Last of Us. And what he had to tell us wasn't very hopeful.


The movie was formally announced in March 2014 as being a Screen Gems release. The screenplay was penned by Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, the Creative Director for the game, who is also a producer on the film along with Raimi and his Ghost House Pictures company, Naughty Dog Co-Presidents' Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, and Game Director Bruce Straley. In the ensuing years since that announcement, there were rumblings of Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams being courted to star and subsequent comments from Druckmann that the movie would boast "big changes" from the game's story.


Then this past April we learned some bad news about the film adaptation. During our chat with Neil Druckmann, he told 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. ... There hasn't been any work done on it in over a year and a half."


I asked Raimi today about Druckmann's comments and what the current status of the film was, which led to a dissection of how the film appears to have stalled over at Screen Gems' parent company Sony Pictures.

Said Raimi, "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."

When I pressed if Raimi was still attached to help produce the Last of Us movie, he replied, "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."

IGN.com

Damn it Sony, quit being stubborn and just let Neil Druckman do his thing already.