Uncharted director Ruben Fleischer talks about the difficulties of adapting a video game to a film, citing a lack of understanding between the two mediums. Video games have had a long and poor history with film adaptations, with beloved franchises such as Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed, and Mario Bros. having all seen coldly received film adaptations with no exemplar for how it should be done. This bad history has led to the idea of a "curse" between the two art forms that no video game can be successfully replicated for film.
Uncharted follows the adventures of Nathan Drake (Tom Holland,) a career fortune hunter, and his mentor Sully (Mark Wahlberg.) The series has seen four mainline video game releases, and players have characterized them as "cinematic," with comparisons to the Indiana Jones franchise for their globe-trotting scale and pulse-pounding set pieces. The Uncharted film has already seen bad reviews from critics, citing the lackluster writing and unfavorable similarities to the Indiana Jones movies.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Fleischer talks about the difficulties of adapting a video game for the big screen, saying how important it was for him to work as a film. He says that the games already have a set tone that's easy to replicate on film, as well as impressive set pieces to draw inspiration from. He also mentions how basing the movie around Drake and Sully's relationship gives the narrative more weight. Read his full quote below:
For me, when you're adapting any piece of material, whether it be a comic book or a video game, it's really important that it work on its own and stand on its own two feet as a feature film, which is what the audiences are paying to see. So while it may be based on this super popular video game franchise, if it doesn't work as a film, then it doesn't work for audiences. So for me, the most important thing was just making sure that it was an entertaining, globe-trotting adventure with a great relationship at its center, which is the Nate and Sully relationship. In my case, I was super lucky that the source material of Uncharted establishes incredible tone, in terms of the comedy that's inherent to the franchise, as well as setting the bar super high for all the action set pieces that we're trying to do. Uncharted is known for having some of the most incredible action of any video game. So we were really lucky to have those as our two guiding principles in making the film, that it honor and respect the Nate and Sully relationship, and that the action be completely original and death-defying, and exciting, and everything that you look for in a great action film. I felt really lucky that we had such an incredible video game franchise to base the movie on.
With Holland's star power, Uncharted has seen some heavy promotion in the weeks up to release. There's also been plenty of fan anticipation given the adaptation's long gestation in development hell (pre-production began in 2008.) A fan-made adaptation starring Firefly star Nathan Fillion was released on YouTube in 2018 and received glowing reviews from critics and fans for its understanding of its subject.
It's simple why video games don't make good movies; it's because they're pushing the non-interactive elements of an interactive medium, like championing the pages of a book rather than the words on those pages. Despite the cinematic aspects of the games, the player will remember climbing through the impressive set pieces rather than watching them from a distance. With Uncharted seemingly set to become yet another mediocre video game movie, despite Fleischer's efforts, perhaps fans will be encouraged to revisit the classic titles that made the adventures of Drake so stirring to begin with.