The Last of Us game was a massive award winner, and now the show can be one as well.
Earlier this week, the Primetime Emmy announced their nominations for this year’s awards. Many great popular shows made the list, such as Better Call Saul and Succession. But among them was a video game IP, The Last of Us. This is the first time we have ever seen a video game IP made into a live-action show get nominated for any major award like this.
Now, there hasn’t been a lack of video game IPs being made into movies or TV. We have seen plenty of Resident Evil movies and shows, the Halo TV show, and more recently, the Super Mario and Sonic movies that have done well at the box office. But it always seems they would make some money but wouldn’t be nominated for any awards.
It makes sense, as the show had stellar ratings and was talked about heavily every week when a new episode dropped. One of the things that made the adaptation so faithful was that they had one of the creators of The Last of Us be in the writers’ room as well as directing an episode. That being Neil Druckmann, who helped write and direct both The Last of Us video games.
Most of the time, we see people not like video game adaptations because they stray way too far from the material, like the Resident Evil movies. With The Last of Us television show, they kept the same magic storytelling that the game had but made sure to deviate when needed to keep it fresh and have their own story to tell.
The show’s highly praised episode, “Long Long Time,” showed a different side of the story, with a whole episode about Bill and his lover Frank that had audiences in tears. This episode alone got many Emmy nominations and can be the new standard for live-action video game adaptations. Hopefully, the future is bright for seeing our favorite video games made into movies and shows.
