By 
Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann has publicly distanced himself and his company from the upcoming third and likely final season of HBO’s “The Last of Us”.
Craig Mazin and Druckmann co-created the TV series adaptation of the acclaimed games, both men front and center in promotional efforts for the show and both essentially writing or co-writing every episode. Druckmann also directed an episode each season.
A few months after the second season aired, Druckmann announced his departure from the series, ending his ‘creative involvement’ to “completely focus” on his game company’s works.
Questions lingered over his exit, some believing it to be HBO stepping in following the more divisive reception the show’s second season received – not a huge surprise as it was based on the second game which famously had a divisive reception to.
Druckmann revealed in an interview a few months later that it was a case of being overloaded with work and that he had to step away, but he would offer advice and guidance in the hope that the third season would be “as deeply faithful as Season 1 was”.
While some of the complaints about the second season were about creative decisions adapted directly from the game, many were about major changes to the characters – most notably the personality of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) – along with some odd creative choices to try and adapt the second game’s time-jumping and perspective-shifting structure.
Now, speaking with The Washington Post (via Forbes), Druckmann has gone into detail on how not involved he and Naughty Dog are in the next season:
“I wasn’t involved in shaping this season’s creative direction, and Naughty Dog did not have a creative role in the direction of this season. So I can’t personally speak to how production is progressing.”
Despite the comments, there have been no reports of a falling out between Druckmann and Mazin. Yet him or his company not being involved in one of HBO’s highest-profile shows, especially after being so hands-on in the first two seasons, has raised eyebrows.
The third season has been in production this year in British Columbia, with filming running from March-May, breaking for seven weeks, then resuming late July and running through until late November.
The series averaged 30 million viewers per episode for its first season and 37 million per episode for its second season, making it one of HBO Max’s biggest hits, though U.S. network overnights on the show (meaning those Americans who tuned in live on the day) saw notable drops in the second season – especially the finale which did admittedly fall on a holiday weekend (“Game of Thrones” had a similar problem in its early years).
Questions also linger about the shift in perspective, with the new season set to primarily focus on Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) over the core three-day period in Seattle. The back half of the second game, which contains the biggest overall set pieces of the franchise, serve as the source material for the new run.
At present, HBO has set “The Last of Us” third season to air in 2027.
The post Druckmann Uninvolved With HBO’s “Last of Us” S3 appeared first on Dark Horizons.
