The years have not been kind to the Uncharted movie. Sony is helming this live-action adaptation of the popular video games. This has been in the works for nearly a decade. Still, when Sony set up PlayStation Productions to turn the console’s video games into movies, Uncharted was to be the first true partnership between the entertainment giants. However, finding a director who will stick around has not been easy.
First, David O. Russell left the project in 2011. Neil Burger followed that in 2012, Seth Gordon in 2015, Shawn Levy in 2018, and Dan Tractenberg in 2019. Travis Knight was the sixth director chosen to bring this movie into reality. Knight is known for directing Bumblebee, the Transformers spinoff. But scheduling has caused Knight to leave the project. Tom Holland has been cast as the lead – a young Nathan Drake. But his Spider-Man filming schedule has created issues with the production for Uncharted. Due to this, Knight left the director position.
Despite this, Sony promises the plans for the film are unchanged. Tom Holland will not be replaced, and neither will co-star Mark Whalberg, who plays mentor Victor “Sully” Sullivan. Ironically, when the film was first conceived in 2011, Whalberg was to play Nathan Drake. But when Holland was chosen, the direction of the movie changed to instead focus on a younger Nathan Drake before the Uncharted video game storylines. One has to wonder, however, if there is another nine-year delay; perhaps Holland will not be so young anymore.
The screenplay is written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. That is promising since Marcum and Holloway are writers from Iron Man. But with Spider-Man still hanging on, if only by a spider’s thread, to the Marvel Universe, Tom Holland will continue to be a highly busy actor. Time will tell if the seventh director selected will stick around, but for now, the live-action Uncharted movie is suspended in production.
