Set aside your concerns about Mark Wahlberg portraying PlayStation 3 action hero Nathan Drake in the big screen adaptation of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, because it doesn’t sound like this movie is based on the video game at all.
Uncharted director David O. Russell tells the LA Times that he sees Nathan Drake and his extended family as some sort of global antiquities squad that dispenses treasure-hunting justice. This must be the concept that Mr. Wahlberg described as “so off the charts.”
“This idea really turns me on that there’s a family that’s a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities … [a family]that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice,” Russell said, which actually sounds more like Indiana Jones’ motivation.
That family may include Wahlberg’s potential co-stars Robert Deniro and Joe Pesci, transforming this Nathan Drake adventure into a film that could be easily titled Uncharted: Antiquity Mafia.
For more details on Russell’s “really cool idea,” read on, lucky Uncharted fans!
Very very skeptical.
Would have been more positive about this if Nathan Fillion was cast as Nathan Drake, but we shall see.
I really hope Naughty Dog has some part in this, for quality control purposes.
Not to be nasty or anything, but this movie is gonna suck.
Sadly agree!
And to think they had a real shot at a decent game-to-movie too. I just don’t understand their motivation I guess.
Money.
Driven by standardised marketing policies.
Guess I’m not seeing this anymore..
Holy crap – this sound abso-bloody-lutely AWFUL! 😐
I wonder if the guys at Naughty Dog are happy about this. I’d LOVE to hear some comments.
This is awesome news – it just saved me about 15 bucks.
15 bucks! What cinema do you go to? more like 25 bucks these days!
25… what are you, a student?
I can’t remember the last time I walked out of a cinema for less than 60 (once you include popcorn and a coke).
$60! What is this, 1945? I can’t remember the last time I went to the cinema and it cost me less that $3000! Admittedly I did buy a choc top.
Choc Tops?
Luxury, in my day we used to have to lick a fistful of freezing cold gravel…
A fist full? In my day we were lucky to get a single piece of gravel each, most times we had to share
… or a cup of sulphuric acid? 😉
And the cinema was a rolled up newspaper in a septic tank.
Palace cinemas. Join the movie club there, you get a card that lets you get 2 concession price tickets for any session, any movie, any day. Plus they tend to show the best movies, which helps 🙂
What a waste of a licence. This sounds like something Uwe Boll would do.
I don’t think anyone involved in this has actually played the games, or even watched someone else play.
This is what I don’t understand…
The “Uncharted” franchise is popular with gamers, so buying a right to make a movie with the name is understandable, it has the potential to make alot of money.
Now, the reason why it has become popular is not just because of the gameplay. The story in the game is the sort of blockbuster popcorn movie to begin with. We loved the “Nathan Drake” character, along with “Elena” and “Sully”, etc… The whole thing was a fun romp.
In come the movie suits and look to basically change the whole thing that made it popular inthe first place.
For once I would love to see a game to movie adaption that is basically 99% faithful to the game. I don’t care if I have played the game already, just make a live action version of it.
god damn it!!!
Now we need to make Nathan Drake a vampire, the kids still like vampires right?
Who cares they’ll like what we tell them to like.
Throw a few transformers in there as well, they can make explosions.
Justin Bieber to do the theme tune? He can also play Drake’s illegitimate son who learns a life lesson along the way.
I want them to drive an Aston Martin through the amazon jungle, we can get the sponsorship.
“Uncharted director David O. Russell tells the LA Times that he sees Nathan Drake and his extended family as some sort of global antiquities squad that dispenses treasure-hunting justice.”
…Isn’t this like that Disney movie National Treasure starring Nicholas Cage?
I don’t really remember that being a massive hit.
I didn’t mind the National Treasure movies – as a way to kill 88 minutes when my missus had cut off my gaming privaleges.
Readin the full article it doesn’t sound so bad. It’s just not going to be the Drake gamers want.
You let your missus cut off your gaming privileges?
Sounds like that’s not the only thing she cut off! 😛
That is exactly what I was thinking. It sounds exactly like National Treasure, which means that there’s already a mildly successful (in that it got a sequel) movie franchise about this concept.
Nathan’s family is only ever mentioned in the games by means of talking about his ancestry. We never see any of his living family members, so how does it make any sense to make the movie about his family? I mean, did O’Russell even PLAY Uncharted? If he did, how could he possibly draw a line from the games’ plots to his idea? Sadly, it looks like this movie is simply going to be a random story with a game unfortunately tied to it, for better or worse. I was excited when I heard about it, but the more I hear the less likely I am to ever want to see it.
As long as their is a hot female co-star in a white shirt and lots of water i’ll be satisfied.
HAHAHA, I get they want a different story but its not even the same characters any more.
I bet this is why Valve wont let hokeywood do a halflife movie.
What the hell is “international treasure hunting justice”?
Just change the title from “Uncharted” to something else, let’s say “Adventure Hunter”, and the characters names from “Nathan Drake” to “Jim Clodger” and there you have it. It’s now completely transformed into a different film.
Why bother buying the Uncharted name/likeness/license when you don’t even use the story.
The concept sounds pretty awesome imo. Currently it sounds like Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft, which on paper adds up to win.
Why don’t they just create it, instead of taking a much loved IP and turning it into something it’s not.
They could call it ‘Indiana Croft and the Sphinx’s Temple’.
Leave Uncharted alone.
…
Uwe Boll has competition?!
Oh well, flush this license too I guess.
Let’s not get carried away. The reason Uwe Boll’s movies are so awful is because they’re terribly made; the fact that they take excessive liberties with their source material is just salt in the wound. For all we know this could turn out to be a decent movie – the director certainly has some positive history – and although there’s plenty of that proverbial salt with this story news, salt without a wound isn’t so bad. We can put it on chips or something.
A family who deals with ancient treasures? You mean like:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which features a father and son team.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which features a father, mother and son team.
The idea of a treasure hunting family has been done many times before David O. Russell so please don’t do it again and stick to the story in the games.
The Mummy Returns which features a father, mother, son and uncle/brother team.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor which features the same team as above just older.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets which features a father, mother, son, love interest team.
oops “The idea of a treasure hunting family has been done many times before David O. Russell so please don’t do it again and stick to the story in the games.” is supposed to be after “National Treasure: Book of Secrets which features a father, mother, son, love interest team.” not in the middle. Have no idea how that happened seeing as I wrote it at the end of my post.
WTF?!?!
From here on the Uncharted film has been unofficially retitled: “Marky Marks Brooding Douche Parade Part Deux”.
Part one being Max Payne.
Someone give this guy a chart…he’s steering way off course
sounds horrible
Here’s hoping it all goes pear shaped and they cancel the shooting. Not a huge fan of making a movie then a sticking a label on it for the sales. There is got to be better BUSINESS sense then that, I mean, how profitable is a bad movie gonna be?
What, it’s not out yet to know? Give it time.
Also, @ Matthew;
but it’s UN-charted!…geddit?…sorry.
“I mean, how profitable is a bad movie gonna be?”
The answer to that question is really, really depressing.
Jesus, fail. I was actually really keen for an Uncharted movie until I read this bucket-load of Hollywood fail.
So if drake is an ex rapper turned badass treasure hunting superhero, that would make elena a former stripper turned nuclear physicist and I suppose sully would have to be the wisecracking black cop 3 days away from retirement
i think its a really good idea to stray from the Game story line, very often game story lines come off very crapy when made into movies.
Videogame adaptions aren’t bad because they stuck to the formula. They stink because, more often than not, the producers don’t give 2 shits about artistic integrity, and are out for a quick buck.
After all, the game has a built-in audience of millions. That gives them a great starting point, and combined with DVD/Blu-Ray sales, makes videogame movies an almost guaranteed financial success.
Uwe Boll and Paul W S Anderson don’t make good movies. Most of them bomb in the box office but considering their overall crapness and shoe-string budgets, still make a net profit. Videogame Adaptions are this generation’s “Springtime for Hitler”
Look, to be honest, this doesn’t sound like that much of a departure from the games. We don’t really know who Nathan Drake is in the game besides what he does.
And also, every other videogame adaptation has stuck with or close to their original storylines, and they’ve all sucked. Sure, that may be because the crew never knew what they were doing, but if Russel thinks this is the way to go, I’m willing to see if it succeeds – as opposed to making a movie that’s exactly like the game, which was pretty much a movie on its own anyway.
So it’s like Antiques Roadshow x The Beverley Hillbillies go to South Africa etc! Goddamn.
Hopefully, this is just a horrible dream. In a moment, I’ll wake up and the news will be all “Nathan Fillion to play Drake, with Bruce Campbell as Sully!”
and if he’s really in, Marky Mark as Flynn
At least Uwe Boll didn’t get his hands on it!