A film adaptation of the popular game series Uncharted has been in the works for quite some time now. According to a live chat with Naughty Dog, the developer behind the franchise, talks of an Uncharted movie go back to about 2008. After number of screenwriters joined and left the project over the past several years, writer Joe Carnahan revealed just a few days ago via an Instagram post that the script for the movie is finally finished.
The next probable move would be to cast the film, which has also presented some problems over the years. At one point, Mark Wahlberg was set to portray Nathan Drake, the game’s protagonist, but he has since left the project. Among many other actors, rising star Chris Pratt was also reportedly in talks with Sony about the part, but he declined. I’m sure many gamers would be happy to see Nolan North, the actor who portrays Nathan Drake in the games, play the lead in the movie, but this seems unlikely. If offers to Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt, as well as the history of movie adaptations of video games, tell us anything, it’s that the direction Sony appears to want to go is to have a Hollywood star play the role rather than an actor whose main gig is video game voice acting.
The Uncharted movie will have big shoes to fill as all four Uncharted games have been received very positively and have all been largely story-centric. As far back as Super Mario Bros., the first ever movie adaptation of a video game, video game movies have largely been flops or received poorly. One could argue that the reason for this is the immersive nature of video games cannot be justly converted into a movie format. However, with a series as story and character heavy as Uncharted, a shift to the silver screen might work this time. We’ll just have to wait and see.