Craig Mazin

Joel and Ellie are finally here.Image: HBOUnlike other shows of similar scope and pedigree, HBO’s upcoming video game-inspired series The Last of Us will not overstay its welcome. Speaking at a recent press day, show creators, writers, and producers Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (Uncharted) revealed that the show, which debuts January 15, is highly unlikely to go longer than three seasons.“The first season is the events of the first game—and you can tell, if you have played the game, from watching the…

Screenshot: HBO“Will break the video game curse?” is a debate as cyclical and pointless in entertainment criticism as “Are video games art?” is in games media, but Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin is intent on blending the two together to make his press tour as insufferable as possible.Speaking to the New Yorker—in, of course, a piece indeed titled “Can The Last of Us Break the Curse of Bad Video Game Adaptations?”—Mazin discussed the game’s transition from a player-controlled experience to a passive one, and how in the…

Image: HBOWith its adaptation of The Last of Us, HBO is banking on the goodwill that Naughty Dog’s zombie-adventure franchise has banked through two games, an expansion, and a handful of comics. An adaptation of the series was always going to draw attention, but putting Pedro Pascal in the lead role as Joel and hiring Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin on as showrunner brought the upcoming series a greater air of prestige than it already would’ve gotten just by being an HBO drama and based on one of PlayStation’s premier franchises.…