The Last of Us 2 HBO series: the approach to video games is particular for the director
In a recent interview, the Swedish director spoke how the creation of characters starting from a video game like The Last of Us is very different from what he did with Chernobyl, where the characters are as identical as possible to people who really existed, or what he is doing with The Magus, an inspired series from the book of the same name by John Fowles.
From his experience, books have greater freedom in creating characters, defining their appearance or the way they speak. Everyone interprets the descriptions in their own way, so there is no right or wrong. We know who that character is, the rest must be built. On the contrary, a truly existing character should only be copied in the best possible way, if you want to try to be faithful to reality as in Chernobyl. But people hardly know people like Valery Legasov, so there are no preconceived ideas and you can work with serenity.
In a video game, on the other hand, millions of people know how they look, they know how to speak and what they did a certain character. For this reason the director is speaking weekly with Neil Druckman, the writer and director of the video game, to understand how to use the various characters and how to approach the project. There are many things to discuss and consider, choices to make before starting the process.
The project, however, is still in the preliminary stages of development and will see the light among different time. Johan Renck in this project has confirmed to be directly involved and in all likelihood will be the director of the prologue. For the continuation of the series does not want to tip the balance.
What do you think of this approach? You want to see something very faithful to the series or would you prefer an approach that is more original?
