Sony Pictures is in negotiations with Bumblebee director, Travis Knight to bring the long-suffering Uncharted adaptation to the big screen.
The film is based on PlayStation’s adventure video game series that follows a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake, who journeys across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. The screenplay is written by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Rafe Judkins, and Tom Holland is set to star as Nathan Drake. Since the film was originally announced over a decade ago there has been a wide range of rotating directors and actors that have exited the project. The most recent of which was 10 Cloverfield Lane Director Dan Trachtenberg, who joined the project after Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy exited the project.
The Uncharted film saga actually began back at E3 in 2008, when Spider-Man producer Avi Arad announced his quest to bring the property to the big screen. Within a couple of years, Sony locked up director David O. Russel, who is best known for his writing work on Silver Lining’s Playbook and American Hustle. Mark Wahlberg joined the production as leading-man Nathan Drake and made it clear in interviews that he was excited about Russel’s“insane” film idea. In 2011 Russel left the project due to “creative differences” and three months later The Illusionist director, Neil Burger was brought on to rework a script by Sahara writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer.
A year later, Burger left the project and there were rumours that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg would take over but it never came to fruition. In 2014 Sony chose Horrible Bosses director Seth Gordon to work off a script from Safe House writer David Gugenheim. At the time, the film was described by Sony executives as a “grittier globe-trotting Bourne.” Shortly after, Sony set an official release date of June 10, 2016, for the film and it finally looked like the long-gestating project was getting off the ground. Unsurprisingly, however, the direction didn’t pan out. Mark Wahlberg left the project and Chris Pratt declined the role of Natan Drake. In 2015, Sony moved the release date to June 30, 2017, with Joe Carnahan writing the script, and Shawn Levy directing.
It remains to be seen if Knight will succeed where his predecessors couldn’t and if an Uncharted movie will ever see the light of day. That being said, if he is able to make the film a reality then he really is entering uncharted territories.
