FormerPlayStationnarrative director Kim MacAskill has taken to LinkedIn in the wake ofUntil Dawn’scinematic release to askSony"Why should IP creators keep working for you?" after the company failed to properly crediit the team behind the Until Dawn movie, instead labelling the movie as simply “based on the Sony game”.
MacAskill also alleged that they had previously created an IP for Sony, but were told they would get “no royalties, no control, no ownership, no acknowledgement” of the idea, and implored Sony to reverse its position on crediting both for the Until Dawn movie and across the company as a whole.
“No Credit. No Thanks. No Honour”
It’s unclear which IP MacAskill is referring to, or if it’s even one that is currently known to the world. Their time at Sony spanned multiple studios from November 2022 to June 2024, while they have previously been narrative lead at Riot Games, a senior scriptwriter onFable(from 2020-21, so the unreleased one), a story consultant atUbisoft, and a senior scriptwriter on theArkhamgames, as well copious experience across TV and film since 2010.
Meanwhile, theUntil Dawn movie has opened to poor reviews, with many fans of the game pointing out the obvious: this isnot an Until Dawn movie. A horror film in which a group of people must survive in an ever-changing haunted house full of horror tropes until dawn, with the timer resetting each time they perish,resurrecting them with a 13 life limit, is a good pitch for a movie. But it’s not Until Dawn.
MacAskill references Neil Druckmann, creator ofThe Last of Us, in her post too. In the HBO show, Druckmann is credited by name as having created the game, along withNaughty Dogcollectively. The individual devs, however, are not listed. Druckmann is also an executive producer, director, and writer on the show itself, but he has used his influence to connect the show to the game far more than some other adaptations, including Until Dawn.
Some of the cast, like Merle Dandridge as Marlene or Jeffrey Wright as Isaac Dixon, reprise their game roles in the show, whileother cast members from the game play other roles, likethe original Ellie, Ashley Johnson, playing Ellie’s mother. We’ve also seen Halley Gross, who co-wrote the second game, join the writer’s room for the second season, so that her influence can still be felt.
So while it’s true that Druckmann appears to have been singled out for greater credit as one of the biggest names amongst Sony’s developers, he’s made efforts to take as many people as he can with him. Until Dawn on the other handseems to actively resent being based on a video game, loosely interpreting the name as a brand new concept and ignoring everything else in the game. Though there is one returning cast member, he plays a very different role.
