'The Last of Us' and 'Uncharted' movies are stuck in limbo
Naughty Dog Studios is renowned for its intensely cinematic, narrative driven games, but has had no such luck in translating that success to the big screen. Despite Uncharted being prime for the summer-action blockbuster treatment, it's been pretty slow in development, with things picking up and falling apart over the past five years. Things aren't much better for The Last of Usfilm adaptation, which was announced a few years ago and still has little more than a script to account for it.
It appears that both video game movie adaptations are stalled after word from Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann threw around the cursed "development hell" term in a recent interview. Here's his full statement that he provided about the film 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. There hasn't been any work done on it in over a year and a half."
As for Uncharted movie, which is headed by Sony Pictures, here is what Druckmann had to say:
"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. 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."
As it stands, the Uncharted movie still has a release date set for June 30, 2017 -- chances are Sony will not be making that date if Druckmann's statement is any indication. Both projects are too well known and film malleable to never be brought to the big screen, but it seems like the road ahead is long for both would-be adaptations. Which is sad, because we really love both of these franchises and would love for them to be seen by a wider audience.
For now we'll just have to enjoy Naughty Dog's upcoming game, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, which is the final installment of the Uncharted series, which releases on May 10th. Click below to watch a new trailer for the game, and you can check out more about Sony here.
