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Could ‘Logan’ Success Lay The Groundwork For ‘Last Of Us’ Movie?

By Toni Matthews
Published on: 13:06 PST, Oct 22, 2016

Warning: This article contains possible spoilers for Logan as well as the video game The Last Of Us.

It’s hard not to get excited for Logan, the upcoming movie that promises to be both Hugh Jackman’s last turn as Wolverine and a very emotional film. After all, the Logan trailer uses Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” to accompany scenes of violence, hardship, and utter despair.

It feels more like a Western than a comic book movie at points. However, the one thing that stood out the most about the trailer — or trailers, if you count the red-band version — has video game fans buzzing.

Namely, the trailer contains elements that strongly remind people of the popular Naughty Dog video game The Last Of Us.

It’s understandable why some people would feel that way. The relationship between Logan and young Laura Kinney (who was revealed via IMDb to be his mutant clone X-23), seems to closely resemble that of the video game characters Joel and Ellie.

The Last Of Us introduces us to a character named Joel, a grizzled middle-aged man who lost everyone close to him and was simply content looking after himself. A preteen character named Ellie came along at a point where Joel wasn’t initially prepared to get close to her or take on the responsibility of looking after her. Of course, fans of The Last of Us know that Ellie was anything but your typical “damsel in distress.”

With Logan, you have the titular character, known mostly by his codename Wolverine, who is older, more vulnerable, and struggling to cope with the fact that his friends are almost all dead. He also doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about caring for the young mutant clone. But apparently, as with Last of Us, Logan and Laura will embark on a perilous journey that brings them together.

In The Last Of Us, Joel comes to accept his charge as a father figure. In Logan, Laura is biologically Wolverine’s daughter, despite the circumstances of her unusual birth. One final commonality is that both stories are set in a somewhat post-apocalyptic near-distant future.

With just a single trailer to go on, it’s hard to know how similar Logan will be to The Last Of Us when it hits theaters in March 2017. But let’s imagine that the common themes we’ve observed between the movie and video game continue to be strong. Let’s also imagine that Logan goes on to be a relatively huge success.

Could the positive correlation between the successful Logan and the themes of The Last Of Us finally help the video game movie hit the big screen?

As Cinema Blend reports, rumors persisted for some time that The Last Of Us would get made into a movie. Unfortunately, Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckman revealed that despite creating a solid script, the Last Of Us movie was stuck in “development hell.”

“I know I said in an interview a while back we had a table read, got the script to a good place and it kind of entered development hell like these things tend to do.”

What might lift The Last Of Us out of development hell? How about a remarkably successful film that has a very similar theme? If there’s anything that Hollywood studios hate, it’s risk. If something does incredibly well, studios are more inclined to follow suit than to take a chance on an original or unproven formula.

In fact, if the Last Of Us similarities prove to be a particularly strong aspect of why Logan does so well, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see a Last Of Us movie rushed into production to capitalize on the connection.

The caveat is, of course, that Logan might be a disappointing failure. It’s hard not to overlook that the final Wolverine-centric film is getting a March 3 release. The earlier a movie is released in the year, the less likely it is to be a runaway success. Fox’s Deadpool proved to be a stunning exception.

Do you think if Logan is a massive success, it might help The Last Of Us make it to the big screen? Please share your thoughts below!

[Featured Image by 20th Century Fox/Naughty Dog/YouTube]

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