‘The Last of Us’ Continues Craig Mazin’s Hollywood Ascent

Craig Mazin used to be in a position for a metamorphosis.

About a decade in the past, Mazin had carved out a cast occupation as a comedy screenwriter. Though his credit had been rarely going to win over critics — “Scary Movie 3” and “Scary Movie 4” in addition to the second one and 3rd installments of the “Hangover” trilogy, amongst them — the calls from Hollywood executives saved coming. It used to be a gentle and profitable task.

Still, there used to be one thing lacking.

“A lot of what I would be offered was stuff where they’re like, ‘Who can fix this thing?’” Mazin recalled in an interview past due closing month. “Or ‘Can somebody get it from a C-plus to a B-minus?’”

Eventually he made up our minds that “I’m better than the work I’m being offered,” he mentioned.

That used to be the primary a very powerful step in what would develop into a outstanding midcareer ascent. Over the closing 4 years, Mazin, 51, has spawned two hit HBO sequence and remodeled himself from a comedy screenwriter into one of the most up to date showrunners in top rate scripted tv.

Mazin’s newest effort, “The Last of Us,” HBO’s adaptation of a online game revolving round an apocalypse, used to be a direct hit. The community mentioned that the primary season of the display, which premiered in January, is averaging more or less 30 million audience, a complete consistent with the “Game of Thrones” by-product, “House of the Dragon,” and simply eclipsing the second one seasons of different well-liked sequence like “Euphoria” (19.5 million) and “The White Lotus” (15.5 million). The first season finale will air on Sunday.

“The Last of Us” has additionally develop into probably the most a success adaptation of a online game into scripted leisure — breaking a pitiful streak by way of Hollywood. While motion pictures like “Warcraft” and the “Sonic the Hedgehog” motion pictures made lots of cash, few would believe them to be considerate storytelling. (Coming subsequent month: “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”)

For Mazin, it began with that epiphany about 9 years in the past. At the time, he already had the glory of his friends — many of his screenwriter buddies, together with the “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had leaned on him for years for recommendation about their paintings. (Mazin has additionally been the co-host of “Scriptnotes,” a well-liked podcast that deconstructs the screenwriting procedure.)

“There was this enormous gap between how they saw me and how the business saw me,” he mentioned.

He made up our minds it used to be time to start out being attentive to them and take an opportunity on himself, so Mazin prompt to create his personal challenge. He found out a news article in regards to the endured cleanup efforts on the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that used to be the web page of the 1986 crisis. Mazin knew lots about American catastrophes however little about Chernobyl, which is in Ukraine, on the time an element of the Soviet Union. He were given to researching and used to be astonished by way of what he came upon. He gobbled the entirety.

“The thing about Craig is, when he locks into something, he’s kind of obsessive,” mentioned Casey Bloys, the chairman of HBO and HBO Max.

Still, pitching a dramatization of the fallout from a crisis 3 many years outdated used to be going to be an uphill climb. Mazin wanted assist. He used to be pleasant with Carolyn Strauss, the esteemed former HBO programming government who left the community in 2008 and started a occupation as a manufacturer, together with her first credit approaching “Game of Thrones.” Strauss knew how a lot Benioff and Weiss relied on Mazin professionally.

“He was a guy who they turned to for notes, for his structural mind, his story mind,” she mentioned. “That whole crew respected his point of view on their work.”

Strauss joined the Chernobyl challenge as a manufacturer and taken the speculation to HBO, figuring out complete smartly that it might be a difficult promote. Kary Antholis, who used to be then working HBO’s mini-series division, took the assembly as it used to be Strauss calling. And certainly, he had his doubts — each about Mazin’s unremarkable credit and the community’s willingness to put money into what used to be uniquely a Russian tale. Then he heard Mazin’s pitch.

“It was the best pitch I’ve heard in 25 years of listening to pitches — there’s nothing that really comes close to it,” Antholis mentioned.

Antholis satisfied Sky to co-produce, lessening HBO’s monetary burden. Expectations had been low, and the sequence used to be given a Monday evening time slot. Mazin mentioned that he have been instructed many times, “no one’s going to watch it.”

Instead, it used to be successful with audience and critics and a darling of the awards circuit. “Chernobyl,” which ran on HBO in 2019, received 10 Emmys and two Golden Globes, together with the prize for ideally suited restricted sequence from each.

This necessarily gave Mazin carte blanche for no matter he sought after to do subsequent at HBO. Mazin recalled that Bloys suggested him to pursue no matter excited him maximum, asking, “What makes you levitate?”

Mazin used to be a devoted gamer, going again to the past due Seventies, when his father introduced an Atari 2600 to their Staten Island house. When “The Last of Us” become a best-selling online game in 2013, Mazin purchased a PlayStation console for it. He used to be mesmerized, specifically by way of the connection between the 2 primary characters: A tricky, middle-aged survivor named Joel, and a 14-year-old woman named Ellie who’s resistant to the an infection that became the general public on this planet into zombies.

A month after “Chernobyl” had wrapped up its run, Mazin met with the sport’s writer, Neil Druckmann, and the 2 get on well. They took the speculation to HBO in July 2019.

“Casey, I found the thing that makes me levitate,” Mazin mentioned he instructed Bloys. “Please, please, please buy this for me.”

Bloys didn’t play video video games, and he used to be lots accustomed to Hollywood’s checkered historical past with adapting them. But there used to be a convention at HBO wherein writers who create a a success challenge are allowed to do no matter they would like for his or her subsequent one, regardless of how other: Alan Ball went from “Six Feet Under” to “True Blood”; Mike White from “Enlightened” to “The White Lotus”; Michael Patrick King from “Sex and the City” to “The Comeback.”

“You’re making a bet on somebody, and it requires trust on both sides,” Bloys mentioned. “It’s always going to be a leap of faith until you see it.”

“The Last of Us” used to be additionally a pricey gamble for the community, in contrast to “Chernobyl,” which had the cheap of more or less $40 million, simplest $15 million of which got here out of HBO’s programming funds, Antholis mentioned.

“The Last of Us” used to be going to price HBO greater than $150 million, now not some distance from “House of the Dragon.” It additionally needed to fill HBO’s high Sunday evening slot, bridging the distance between “The White Lotus,” which led to December, and the general season of “Succession,” which is able to premiere in past due March. HBO and its debt-ridden guardian corporate, Warner Bros. Discovery, desperately wanted a provide of new hits to stay other people from canceling HBO Max. The stakes had been top.

First, the critiques got here in: Critics had been ecstatic, simply as that they had been with “Chernobyl” 4 years previous. And then the scores got here in: It used to be a huge hit.

The 3rd episode boosted the display’s profile even additional. Social media lit up with satisfaction over the stand-alone installment, which used to be written by way of Mazin and most commonly diverted from the supply subject matter: It focused at the marriage and survival of two peripheral characters, Bill and Frank, performed by way of Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett.

“What struck me about Bill and Frank and the potential for that story is to show a kind of love that we just don’t give a lot of attention to: The love between committed adults that are not getting younger,” Mazin mentioned.

“The Last of Us” has already been renewed, and Mazin is weeks clear of beginning to write scripts for Season 2 with Mr. Druckmann.

In hindsight, the danger to do any of this all started as soon as Mazin made up our minds he used to be performed with being pigeonholed by way of Hollywood executives.

“The industry doesn’t understand who people are — it only understands what they’ve written today,” he mentioned. “One of the traps that you can get in as a comedy writer is their insistence that you must continue to only do that, because there just aren’t that many people that they can reliably hire to do those things. So they’ll keep you there.

“It was risky,” he continued, “but also exhilarating to just say, ‘I think I’m going to allow myself the freedom to do something else.’”