Sam Raimi Almost Produced THE LAST OF US Movie With Maisie Williams as Ellie, and the Old Teaser Poster Has Resurfaced
Before Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey trekked across a cordyceps-infested America on HBO, The Last of Us almost took a very different route to live action.
One that involved Spider-Man and Evil Dead filmmaker Sam Raimi, a theatrical movie, and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams as Ellie.
That version never made it out of development, but an old promotional poster for the abandoned film has resurfaced online and given fans another look at one of Hollywood's more fascinating "what if?" adaptations.
The project dates back to 2014, when Raimi was attached to produce a movie based on Naughty Dog's acclaimed PlayStation game. Sony even created a poster for the film's San Diego Comic-Con appearance that year.
The artwork shows what appears to be a slightly older take on Ellie, complete with her recognizable backpack and a knife in hand. Looking at it now is a strange reminder that The Last of Us was once being positioned as a feature film.
Fans discovering or rediscovering the poster have been having some fun imagining that alternate timeline. One fan wrote: "I remember being so excited for this all those years ago. Imagine if this got made."
Another was surprised the project had ever existed: "Is this an alternate reality? Since when did this exist?"
Raimi appeared at San Diego Comic-Con in 2014 and explained what he thought the story could become on the big screen, saying: "I think it’s going to be a great character journey and a great love story and a really great horror picture."
That's a pretty good description of what makes The Last of Us work in the first place. The monsters and violence matter, but Joel and Ellie's relationship is the heart of the story.
Raimi also revealed that Williams had met with the filmmakers about playing Ellie. At the time, she was already becoming a fan favorite as Arya Stark on Game of Thrones, so it's easy to understand why her name came up for the role.
Neil Druckmann, creator of The Last of Us and eventual co-showrunner of the HBO adaptation, was going to write the screenplay. The movie got far enough along that table reads were held, and there's another interesting piece of casting history buried in there.
Kaitlyn Dever participated in those readings as Ellie. Years later, Dever joined HBO's The Last of Us in the very different role of Abby.
The movie eventually became trapped in development and never reached production. Its rights ultimately lapsed in 2019, but Druckmann later explained that one of the major problems was an effort to turn the material into something bigger and more action-driven than it needed to be.
“Our approach for The Last of Us was ‘Let’s make it as an indie film’. Let’s approach it as an indie film team, the way it’s shot, the way how small and intimate it feels….
"When I worked on the movie version, a lot of the thinking and notes were like, 'How do we make it bigger? How do we make the set pieces bigger?' It didn’t work for The Last of Us, and I think that’s ultimately why the movie wasn’t made."
Raimi shared his side of the situatiuon, saying: "Well, unfortunately that one, when we went to Neil with Ghost House Pictures we were hoping to get the rights like we do any project and then we'd take it out and sell it but we'd control the rights.
“With this one he went to Sony, who I have a very good relationship with, but they have their own plans for it and I think Neil's plan for it, I'm not trying to be political, Neil's plan for it is not the same as Sony's.
“And because my company doesn't have the rights, I actually can't help him too much. Even though I'm one of the producers on it the way he set it up, he sold his rights to Sony, Sony hired me as a producer by chance, and I can't get the rights free for him so I'm not in the driver's seat and I can't tell you what Sony and Neil together will decide on. If they do move forward I'd love to help them again."
“They don't want to move forward, and it's not my place to say why, and Neil, I think, is in a slight disagreement with them about how things should go so there's a standstill. And I don't have the power to move it."
I would’ve loved to see what this film would’ve become, but in hindsight, the collapse of the Sam Raimi movie may have worked out for the best. The story eventually found a home on television, where it had considerably more room for Joel and Ellie's relationship, the supporting characters, and the emotional weight of the game's world.
The HBO adaptation became a massive success and is now heading toward its third season. Still, it's hard not to wonder what Raimi's version might have looked like.
A The Last of Us movie produced by the guy behind Evil Dead, Drag Me to Hell, and the original Spider-Man trilogy, with Maisie Williams potentially playing Ellie, could have been something pretty damn interesting.