This week’s seen a fantastic growth of news for HBO Max subscribers, the latest two of which include current development of DC/Vertigo adaptation, DMZ, and Friday’s announcement of a series take based on the hit video game, The Last Of Us.
Production is set to commence next year for a four part adaptation of DMZ, based on the 2005 Vertigo/DC publication, marking the latest milestone since its planned development first landed at SyFy in 2014.
DMZ is set in the near future where America is embroiled in a bitter civil war, leaving Manhattan a demilitarized zone (DMZ), destroyed and isolated from the rest of the world. The show will chronicle the harrowing journey of fearless and fierce medic Alma Ortega (series star Rosario Dawson), who sets out on a harrowing journey to find the son she lost in the evacuation of New York City at the onset of the conflict. Throwing gasoline on the flames of that conflict is Parco Delgado (series star Benjamin Bratt), the popular — and deadly — leader of one of the most powerful gangs in the DMZ. He wants to rule this new world — and will stop at nothing to secure that outcome. In this adrenalized and expansive drama which examines a stark political and cultural divide in American society, Alma must contend with the gangs, militias, demagogues and warlords that control this lawless no man’s land. In doing so, she becomes the unlikely source of what everyone here has lost…hope.
Dawson and Bratt will be joined by Hoon Lee (“Banshee,””Warrior”), Freddy Miyares (“When They See Us,” “The L Word: Generation Q”) and Jordan Preston Carter (“The Haves and the Have Nots”).
Emmy nominee Roberto Patino is writing the series and showrunning with Emmy winner/Academy Award nominee Ava DuVernay directing the pilot. Both are exec producing for Warner Bros. TV.
On the video game front, Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming took to the press on Friday to announce a series order for The Last Of Us, based on the hit Naughty Dog game franchise which made waves after launching in 2013 for Playstation platforms.
Per the games, the story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.
The Last Of Us is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television, with PlayStation Productions, Word Games, and Naughty Dog producing. Craig Mazin (HBO’s “Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann (“The Last of Us” and “Uncharted” video game franchises) who are writing the series will also exec produce next to Carolyn Strauss (HBO’s “Chernobyl” and “Game of Thrones”), Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan.
The series will be available on HBO and to stream on HBO Max.