All Articles: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Sony Pictures has spun the Wheel of Fortune one more time and come up with another new director for their film adaptation of the Uncharted franchise.

Dan Trachtenberg, who is best known for directing 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, previously occupied the director’s chair for Uncharted: The Movie, but according to a report on Deadline, he has decided to step down. Thankfully for Tom Holland, who will play a younger version of Nathan Drake in the film, Sony Pictures has already recruited a replacement… Travis Knight, the director of 2018’s Bumbleebee and 2016’s Kubo and The Two Strings.

As long as nothing else goes wrong with the Uncharted adaptation, filming is still expected to begin early next year. But the movie’s previously-announced December 18, 2020 release date will most likely have to change.

The pieces are finally coming together for Uncharted’s big screen debut. Tom Holland has officially signed on to play a younger version of Nathan Drake in the film adaptation and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, it even has a release date… December 18, 2020.

It’s been a long, long road for the Uncharted movie to even make it to this point. A fan campaign tried to secure the role of Drake for Nathan Fillion all the way back in 2010, but it was Mark Wahlberg that eventually got the part (with Robert De Niro aboard as Victor “Sully” Sullivan). Both would later drop out, and Holland was put in place in 2017 (though Fillion would get to portray the character in a fan film released last year).

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Uncharted‘s cinematic aspirations, but we do know that Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) will direct the film for Sony Pictures, and the current draft of the script was written by Jonathan Rosenberg and Mark Walker.

If all goes according to plan, Tom Holland will soon put his Spider-Man suit in the closet and head out on an adventure as a young Nathan Drake in an Uncharted movie adaptation.

It’s been a very winding road for the film adaptation of Sony’s wildly popular action-adventure series, and one point in time, fans were pushing hard to give the role to Nathan Fillion. The star of Firefly and Castle was very interested in the idea, but Sony’s prequel plans have seemingly put a stop to that.

So instead, Fillion teamed up with director Allan Ungar to create a live-action fan film based on the franchise. The 15-minute short also features plenty of excitement, as well as Stephen Lang as Victor “Sully” Sullivan, Mircea Monroe as Elena Fisher, Geno Segers as Diego, and Ernie Reyes Jr (Keno from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II!) as El Tigre.

Fillion expounded a bit on what making the fan film meant to him on Instagram:

This is something I’ve wanted to do, but more importantly, something I’ve wanted to see for a long time. If you’ve ever pinned a towel around your neck for a cape, or donned a fedora and nearly put your eye out with a homemade whip, this is for you. Thank you, [Allan Ungar], for letting us all scratch this itch. Thank you, [Naughty Dog], for creating such a wonderful archetype. Thank you fans, for your excellent taste. You know who you are. Enjoy.

The Uncharted fan film directed by Allan Unger, and starring Nathan Fillion as Nathan Drake, is embedded above.

After years in development, Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and No Man’s Sky all launched in 2016. With that trio of games now available in stores, we might have finally reached the point where all the vaporware-adjacent video games have either finally been released or officially canceled. Thankfully, the Uncharted movie is the gift that keeps on giving.

The film adaptation was first announced in 2009, and since then, Naughty Dog has actually said “goodbye” to Nathan Drake with the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Before that, but after the Uncharted film was first announced, they managed to produce three sequels to the original game and multiple spinoff titles. Several directors and writers have taken a crack at the franchise over the years, and all of them eventually stepped away. But it looks like director Shawn Levy and screenwriter Joe Carnahan will finally be the ones who bring the franchise to the big screen.

Carnahan got on Instagram this weekend and revealed that the script for Uncharted is finished. This is an accomplishment in itself, but he also seems rather proud of his work. Carnahan referred to the script as “a BEAST” and claimed “[there’s not] a more monstrously cool action script in Hollywood right now.”

The Uncharted movie will begin filming sometime this year, and you can find Carnahan’s Instagram post after the break. (more…)

It’s been a long journey for the Uncharted movie, but director Shawn Levy recently told Collider that filming will begin on the cinematic adaptation next year in the late Spring or early Summer. During a special IMAX screening of Real Steel, Levy’s 2011 robot boxing movie that starred Hugh Jackman, the director laid out his vision for the Uncharted film:

I’ve been interested in this project for years. I’ve played and loved every iteration of the game. I think it’s largely a popularly accepted notion that it’s as cinematic a game as we’ve had, maybe ever, certainly of late. And it’s cinematic in that it’s not only wildly visual, but it’s really rooted in character and a very specific tone and a sense of fun, right? When is the last great, fun, fucking action-dynamic, treasure-hunting movie? Right? It’s not Indiana Jones, it’s not National Treasure; it’s very specific, it’s all kind of anchored in Nathan’s tone.

So I’ve been interested in it, and I’ve just been quietly letting people know I’ve been interested in it, but other people have been involved, I’ve been busy, and a moment finally appeared recently where I was like, “Me! Okay, me!” Sony and the producers involved were like, “Yeah, that actually makes perfect sense.” I’m like, “Yeah! That’s what I’ve been saying for a little while.”

I am unabashedly thrilled to be making that next year.

Levy’s lengthy talk also touched on Joe Carnahan’s script (the A-Team director is still working on it), Indiana Jones versus Nathan Drake (Drake is “much grittier, more naturalistic, real-world, contemporary”), and which actors might be up for the role of Drake (“It’s every actor who is ruggedly handsome, which is to say every movie star, and who looks anything like the square-jawed, chiseled-featured Drake”).

The entire article is worth a read, but Levy isn’t the first director to take a crack at an Uncharted adaptation. Development on the film began in early 2008 and passed through multiple directors and writers (including David O. Russell, Neil Burger, and Seth Gordon) before landing on Levy last month.

The film adaptation of Uncharted is setting sail for uncharted waters once again, as Sony Pictures has revealed to Variety that Joe Carnahan will write a new version of the script.

Carnahan is currently working with Sony to write and direct Bad Boys 3, but the director established his action-adventure bona fides many years ago with Smokin’ Aces, The Grey, and The A-Team.

“Archaeology today is in itself an antiquity, but that world has always fascinated me. Especially when you go to a museum today and wonder how a piece got there to begin with,” [Carnahan] said. “Plus, the property itself is so popular that it was hard to turn down an opportunity to work on it.”

The Uncharted movie is currently expected to open on June 30, 2017. But with no script, no director, and no actors, Sony Pictures will likely be forced to reschedule it to a later date.