Sony's Uncharted movie starring Tom Holland as adventurer Nathan Drake has lost another director in Bumblebee's Travis Knight. Sony has been trying to no avail to make a movie adaptation of the popular Playstation video game for over a decade. They've seen several writers, directors, and stars cycle through Uncharted, with each new iteration of the movie giving fans anxious to see the story on the big screen new optimism.
The most recent incarnation of Uncharted that got fans excited was when Holland, hot off the success of being Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, became attached to star. His addition to the film came after Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) signed on to direct, but he then exited at the end of 2018. Since then, Sony got Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) to agree to helm the movie before he left, which paved the way for Travis Knight to fill the role. Knight appeared to be the right choice for the project with additional casting happening, but now Uncharted is once again without a director.
As shared by Deadline, Knight will exit the project, reportedly due to scheduling issues. The issues are not with another project he has, but rather accommodating to the schedule of Holland's next solo Spider-Man film. Even though Uncharted is currently slated to come out in December 2020, production on the film reportedly is not going to happen before Holland does Spider-Man 3. Not only will this likely result in release date change for the film, but it is the reason Knight is leaving.
The loss of Knight is another major setback for Sony as they try to get Uncharted moving. He is the sixth director overall to leave the project, joining the aforementioned names, as well as David O'Russell, Neil Burger, and Seth Gordon. Sony will now once again be on the hunt for a director, but it will not be searching for new cast members. Holland is still attached to star as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg - who was once attached to lead the film - is staying aboard to play Drake's mentor Sully. But, news of the next Uncharted director may take some time if production is indeed going to be delayed.
After all of this, it is difficult to not have a feeling that the Uncharted movie is simply a cursed project at this point, similar to Fox's Gambit or Sony's reboot of The Crow. The only difference between Uncharted and those types of films is that Sony currently still appears to want to make the adventure film. There is plenty of potential for a great movie franchise with Nathan Drake and his world if Sony can find the right director to bring it to life. Given the amount of time they've spent trying to make Uncharted happen, fans can only hope that the movie will be worth the wait.
Source: Deadline
