Tom Holland says the Uncharted movie is an origin story of video game character Nathan Drake. Developed by Naughty Dog, the action-adventure game Uncharted was released in 2007 on the PlayStation 3, and was followed up by three sequels as well as a prequel for Sony’s PlayStation Vita handheld system.
Development on a movie adaptation of the wildly popular game series began in 2008, with Nathan Fillion originally reported to be taking on the lead role of Drake. In 2010, David O. Russell became the first director attached to the project, with Mark Wahlberg considered for the role of Drake, but he soon dropped out. Russell’s departure set a pattern for the project that would play out multiple times, with Neil Burger (Divergent), Seth Gordon (Baywatch), Shawn Levy (The Internship), Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane), and Travis Knight (Bumblebee) all taking their brief turns as directors attached to the film. As of last reports, Ruben Fleischer (Venom) was in talks to direct with Wahlberg jumping back aboard as the character of Victor “Sully” Sullivan.
To call Uncharted a troubled production would obviously be an understatement, but the film does at least still have one thing going for it, namely Holland. When asked by IGN about the film’s story, Holland revealed that plans are for the movie to tell what happened to his character before the events of the game, an approach that Holland thinks will help the movie overcome the dreaded video game adaptation curse. Holland said:
“I think what Uncharted offers that most video games films don't is that it's an origin story to the games. So if you played the games, you haven't seen what's going to happen in the film. And if you haven't played the games, you're going to enjoy the film because it's information that everyone else is getting at the same time. But I'm super excited to make that movie and it's been a long time coming.”
That explanation indeed clears up one fan concern about the movie, which is Holland’s age, the actor being considered too young to take on the role of grizzled adventurer Drake as he appears in the games. Holland also spoke about his excitement to be pairing with Wahlberg as Drake’s mentor Sully, saying “I think Mark Wahlberg's going to kill it as Sully and it's going to be a lot of fun.”
With Holland and Wahlberg starring, Joe Carnahan’s script in place and Fleischer reportedly getting set to take over directing duties, it seems Uncharted may finally overcome its many years of problems and build some momentum toward actually reaching screens. That being said, fans may want to be cautious in their optimism given all the roadblocks that have already sprung up as the film has gone through its tortuous development process. Either way, there’s reason to be excited about the origin story approach, which sounds interesting and will obviously benefit from the presence of Holland, who has already proven his action star credentials by playing Peter Parker to such memorable effect in the MCU. It will be fascinating to see how things play out for Uncharted as more pieces of the puzzle are put together.
Source: IGN
