The Last of Video Game Film Adaptations by Ryan Meitzler

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"Much like the characters in the post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, video game-based films just have never been able to catch a break from horror and bad circumstances. Surprisingly, even though the comparison may be a stretch, history has proven this to be true: from the laughingly-bad movie adaptations of game franchises like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, to halfway-decent-but-still-not-particularly-good series like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, video game movies occupy their own sort of special apocalyptic wasteland, not unlike the cordyceps-ravaged world of The Last of Us."
Video Game Film Failures are common in the industry and this can worry a fan base, comparisons are made between that part of the industry and the world of The Last of Us to simply get across the situation. 

"Despite the initial reactions, the news of the feature film came surprisingly to be sure, but with the film’s reveal also came the announcement of its creative talent, with the film set to be distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and produced by Ghost House Pictures, the studio owned by Evil Dead and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi. Following behind Sony and Ghost House would be much of the original talent from the game itself: Sony announced that the film will be written exclusively by Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, along with co-creative director Bruce Straley having involvement in the film."
Well known names have been attached to the project to put confidence in it, unlike other video game films. Naughty Dog is keeping close to the project which is also a confidence booster in the finished products results as they had written the original script for the game, making the project close to the original (which the audience want). 

"...how could Sony expect to faithfully reproduce an already pretty cinematic game? How could Druckmann and the film’s producers potentially offer up something profound and notable, both for video games and movies? How could a film adaptation live up to the (almost) unanimous Game of the Year for 2013? Most importantly: how can The Last of Us (potentially) fix video game film adaptations?"
The many questions asked by the article as well as those interested, reference made to video game film adaptations and if The Last of Us will fix and change the reputation of those types of adaptions. 

"Video game adaptations (for the most part) have had far more failures than successes. Dating back to the first few film adaptations of video games like Super Mario Bros. (1993) and Mortal Kombat(1995) to more recent attempts like this week’s release of Need for Speed (2014), video game-based movies have had a notable struggle to gain traction when it comes not only to critical and commercial success, but also just in terms of narrative and artistic accomplishments."
Wide range of failures for video game film adaptations across the years, these types of films have trouble grabbing an audience as well as having a strong narrative and such.

"While some films in the past have at least earned some middling success, like Silent Hill (2006) and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), for being relatively decent by video game-movie standards, for the large part game movies have struggled due to their overreliance on trying to recreate their game counterparts to a “T” on the big screen. More often than not, this has resulted in many video game-based movies trying to recreate the feeling and action of their original source material, but coming across one of the biggest challenges of adapting video games into film in the first place instead."
The article then goes on to talk about the film, Doom (2005) which tried this with a “first-person shooter” sequence near the film’s end, resulting in a scene that visually was fun and engaging, but came off as a recreation trying too hard to be like the game.

"The interactivity and immersion of games is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recreate (properly) within a movie. It’s the intangible effect that speaks to the larger part of why the translation between games to movies has proven so difficult: why video games can feel “cinematic” and often feel better for it, while movies that feel “video game-y” are more often criticized than complimented."
An audience can not interact or feel immersion from a film like they do from a video game. Within video games, the user/player has control over certain elements and is brought into the story while, within film, the audience is a viewer and cannot interact with the story or be involved which takes away one of the appeals of video games.

"Where Doom and other game movies were lashed at for their need to be just like their game counterparts, others like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012) were critical darlings for successfully recreating the energy and fun of video games, while not even being based on any particular franchise or series."
Films based around video games in general seem to do better than films based on a specific video game franchise, this is because these films have no expectations from another media to go with them. It is a new and original story so the expectation for them isn't as high as a film based on another media. Wreck-It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World plays on the audiences nostalgia (Wreck-It Ralph = character nostalgia, Scott Pilgrim = arcade fighter nostalgia)

"However, could the film improve on some of the (relatively few) shortcomings of the game? While The Last of Us was well regarded for its story and emotional involvement, a quality that will easily translate to film under the right direction and writing, the film may have the chance to refine some of the game’s repetitive combat, one of the few issues that some found with the title. In the place of combat setpieces that some felt acted as “filler” between its strong narrative sequences, the film could provide action sequences that serve the story, rather than just being action for the sake of action."
Film could help improve on parts of the video games that didn’t serve the story, as film is more narrative and story based than anything else, unlike video games as they have to equally have story focus and gameplay focus to engage the player.

"With titles like Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed similarly on track to receive feature film adaptations in the coming years, while others like BioShock have lamented in development hell for even longer, The Last of Us’s announcement as a feature film adaptation gives plenty of reason to groan. As history has shown, video game-to-movie adaptations have been far from successful, and only leaves us to question whether adapting such a hugely successful title like The Last of Us will bring failure or not: will this end up like the countless game movie failures like so many times before?
Right now, it’s unclear: but, with the backing of Druckmann, Straley, and Sony behind a full-fledged feature-film recreation of the game, we could equally as likely see the first true high-quality video game movie to come our way. Whether it’s just the first to come or the last of a quality game movie adaptation though, remains to be seen."
Talks about future video game film adaptions, goes back to points from rest of article; video game films often fail as shown through their history, known names behind the project add confidence in it and an expectation.