From Comedy Films To Critical Acclaim
About a decade ago, Craig Mazin had carved out a solid career as a comedy screenwriter. Though his credits were hardly going to win over critics — “Scary Movie 3,” “Scary Movie 4” and the second and third installments of the “Hangover” trilogy — the calls from Hollywood executives kept coming. It was a steady and lucrative job.
Still, there was something missing. He decided that “I’m better than the work I’m being offered,” he said.
That was the first crucial step in what would become a remarkable ascent. Over the last four years, Mr. Mazin, 51, has spawned two hit HBO series and transformed himself from a comedy screenwriter into one of the hottest showrunners in premium scripted television.
Mr. Mazin’s latest effort, “The Last of Us,” HBO’s adaptation of a video game revolving around an apocalypse, was an immediate hit. The network said that the first season, which began in January, is averaging roughly 30 million viewers — in line with the “Game of Thrones” spinoff, “House of the Dragon.”
For Mr. Mazin, it all started with that epiphany about nine years ago. At the time, he already had the respect of his peers; many of his screenwriter friends, including the “Game of Thrones” creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, had leaned on him for years for advice about their work.
“There was this enormous gap between how they saw me and how the business saw me,” he said.
So Mr. Mazin set off to create his own project. He came upon a news article about the continued cleanup efforts at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, the site of the 1986 disaster. He began researching and was astonished by what he discovered. Mr. Mazin decided to create a dramatization of the fallout from the disaster.
Kary Antholis, who was then running HBO’s mini-series department, had his doubts — both about Mr. Mazin’s unremarkable credits and the network’s willingness to invest in what was uniquely a Russian story. Then he heard Mr. Mazin’s pitch.
“It was the best pitch I’ve heard in 25 years of listening to pitches,” Mr. Antholis said.
Still, expectations were low. Mr. Mazin said that he had been told repeatedly, “No one’s going to watch it.”
Instead, it was a hit with viewers and critics and a darling of the awards circuit. “Chernobyl,” which ran on HBO in 2019, won 10 Emmys and two Golden Globes, including the prize for best limited series from both.
This essentially gave Mr. Mazin complete freedom to do whatever he wanted to do next at HBO.
Mr. Mazin was a dedicated gamer, going back to the late 1970s. When “The Last of Us” became a best-selling video game in 2013, he bought a PlayStation for it. He was mesmerized, particularly by the relationship between the two main characters: a tough, middle-age survivor named Joel, and a 14-year-old girl named Ellie who is immune to the infection that turned most people on the planet into zombies.
Casey Bloys, the chairman of HBO and HBO Max, did not play video games, and he was familiar with Hollywood’s checkered history with adapting them. “The Last of Us” would be an expensive gamble, costing HBO more than $150 million, not far from “House of the Dragon.”
First, the reviews came in: Critics were ecstatic. And then the ratings came in: It was an enormous hit. “The Last of Us” has been renewed for a second season.
The chance to do any of this began once Mr. Mazin decided he was done with being pigeonholed by Hollywood executives.
“It was risky,” he said, “but also exhilarating to just say, ‘I think I’m going to allow myself the freedom to do something else.’ ”