The Last of Us TV show being produced by HBO won't go into full production until after Naughty Dog has finished developing The Last of Us Part 2.

Craig Mazin revealed this on the latest episode of his weekly podcast Scriptnotes now that the news is out that he's co-writing The Last of Us TV show's adaptation. Production can't start properly until The Last of Us creative director and co-writer of the TV adaptation Neil Druckmann is freed from his duties on the game's sequel.

"We can't start on it right away because they're still finishing up the second game, but pretty soon," Mazin said. "We've been talking about it for months and coming up with little plans and things. But we're going to dig in in full, full earnest pretty soon, just as soon as they wrap up their final work on the sequel. So hopefully more exciting news to come on that front because it's something we're both motivated to see on TV."

Mazin also revealed that he was introduced to Druckmann via a mutual friend, Shannon Woodward, who is Elsie Hughes in HBO's TV show Westworld. Mazin also talked about how he insisted The Last of Us should be made into a TV show rather than a movie, which it was being turned into previously.

"It was going to be a movie for a long time. Neil was working on it as a movie for one of Sony's divisions, and my feeling was that you can't make a movie out of this thing, it has to be a show, it needs length," Mazin said.

"It is about the development of a relationship over the course of a long journey, so it has to be to be a television show and that's that. That's the way I see it. Happily, Neil agreed and HBO was delighted, and so here we are."

After the announcement of The Last of Us TV show last week, Mazin responded to a question from a fan on Twitter, promising that main character Ellie will still be gay in the show, just as she is in the games.

There aren't any further details yet, but we can tell you why The Last of Us will be perfect as an HBO series - it helps that it's being co-written by the writer/director of the award-winning Chernobyl series.

Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.