‘Last of Us’ showrunner Craig Mazin is now a credited writer on ‘Dune: Part Two’ thanks to a new WGA policy

Craig Mazin has not seen the last of his film writing career.

The “Last of Us” co-showrunner revealed during the “Happy Sad Confusedpodcast that “Dune: Part Two” writer-director Denis Villeneuve reached out to Mazin about spending a month assisting in the script for the sequel with Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh.

Mazin noted that Villeneuve called him personally as Mazin is “out of the film business” almost entirely and focused on TV.

“I’ll work with a few directors when they call me because I love them and because they’re so brilliant,” Mazin said. “So if Denis Villeneuve calls, then absolutely. I’m there for three, four weeks – a month – to work on what you’re working on.

“Dune: Part Two” is co-written by Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, with Mazin now receiving a writing credit. The film follows Paul (Chalamet) as he seeks revenge for his father’s murder while trying to bring peace to Arrakis.

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Mazin noted that his work on the screenplay for “Dune: Part Two” is what previously would have been considered “uncredited” in Hollywood. However, effective January 2022, the WGA announced that writers’ names would appear during a film’s credits and on industry databases for work that “provided WGA-covered writing services on theatrical features that do not receive writing credits,” such as the official guild page declared.

“You come in, do some work and then you leave. Once upon a time you couldn’t even tell,” Mazin said. “But now they have this additional literature (credit).”

Mazin previously wrote the HBO limited series “Chernobyl,” with “Dune” actor Stellan Skarsgård.

“In television, creatively, more than a lot of movies where the directors are important, the writers are important,” Mazin told IndieWire’s Anne Thompson in 2019.

The showrunner also received the admiration of Steven Spielberg, who sent a letter to the “Last of Us” team praising the series’ script.

“(A real letter from Spielberg) has come to Craig Mazin, the writer of my episode of ‘The Last of Us’ — the writer of all the episodes,” director Peter Hoar he said during a recent THR roundtable. “He shared it with myself, (actors) Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett and (cinematographer) Eben Bolter. Basically, a whole bunch of middle-aged men started yelling because their idol figured out who they were.”