Ever since the first Uncharted game hit PS3 a decade ago, fans have been saying the cinematic series needs to hit movie theaters, and it seems that’s finally coming together. Earlier this year Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming) was cast as a young Nathan Drake, and in a recent interview with Nerdist (transcribed by Screen Rant), Uncharted director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) discussed the project’s potential and pitfalls.
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According to Levy, he’s aiming at nothing less than making the next Indiana Jones…
“The game is awesome — the spirit, with its action set pieces, it’s imaginative setting, and above all, the kind of rogue swagger of Nathan. Those are things that I think make for a great movie. When I met with Tom Holland, he kind of put it really succinctly by saying, if we do the origin of Drake, that is something that we haven’t seen as the plot of games. We’ve seen a snippet of an origin of Sully and Drake meeting in the past, but here’s maybe an opportunity to do a treasure-hunting action movie with attitude, with a protagonist — and chapter of the protagonist’s life — that you can’t get at home, by just playing the game.
So, we’re trying to kind of take the spirit and the tone and the attitude of the game — and the crazy, visual spectacle of it — but apply it to this Drake chapter that you haven’t seen told. Hopefully, if we can get that right, what you’re doing is: you’re doing right by Uncharted, and you’re also giving an Indiana Jones-type franchise to an audience that didn’t grow up on Indiana Jones.”
Of course, we’ve heard big talk about video game adaptations before, and they almost always disappoint. How is Levy planning to avoid to gaming movie curse?
“I think we’ve all seen as fans — for 15 years at least — straight adaptations of games, I don’t know that any have ever worked. Either they’re bad, or they’re decent but still unsuccessful. I don’t want to just do a live-action version of action sequences we’ve seen in the game, I want action sequences that are equal in audacity but aren’t what you played. Secondly, I think the only thing you can make sure you do, to differentiate, is a deeper dive into character. So, whether it’s Sully, whether it’s Drake, whether it’s Elena or Chloe, I think as a film director, the onus is on me to take a deeper, more nuanced dive into character, because that’s kind of what a movie needs to be truly cinematic. It needs visuals and it needs that nuanced dive in character.”
I don’t know, I’d say the Uncharted games already delve fairly deeply into character. It’s kind of a catch-22 with Uncharted – the games are already so cinematic, it’s going to be hard to differentiate the movie.
The Uncharted movie doesn’t yet have a solid release date. While we’re waiting for more news, you can check out the latest game in the series, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, which hits PS4 on August 22.
[via Screen Rant]
