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Uncharted: Everything We Know About the Video Game Adaptation

10/21/2021 • 4 min read

Video game developer Naughty Dog makes games with an explicitly cinematic bent. One of the studio's signature franchises is "Uncharted," which follows the adventures of Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who bears more than a few similarities to big-screen heroes like Indiana Jones.

Now Drake himself is headed to the big screen in UNCHARTED, a movie from director Ruben Fleischer, with Tom "Spider-Man" Holland playing the lead role. After years of development, it's one of the most highly-anticipated video game adaptations, period. Here's everything we know about UNCHARTED, including the first trailer!

The Uncharted Release Date

UNCHARTED comes to theatres on February 18, 2022.

Watch the First Uncharted Movie Trailer!

 

After a wait that seemed un...ending, the first UNCHARTED trailer has arrived! We get to see Tom Holland as a version of Nathan Drake who is younger than in most of the video games, and Mark Wahlberg as a younger-than-usual Sully. But other than the character ages, this looks a lot like the games! There's even a big setpiece that is heavily indebted to a notable sequence in one of the "Uncharted" game sequels.

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The Star of Uncharted

Development of UNCHARTED took ten years, but in all that time not many actors were truly set to play Nathan Drake. The primary early choice was Mark Wahlberg, who ended up in the movie anyway, playing Drake's friend and mentor, Victor “Sully” Sullivan.

After the success of SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, Sony recruited Tom Holland to play Drake, and the movie's script was rewritten to focus on a younger version of the character than in the games.

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Does Uncharted Adapt Any Specific Game?

Not exactly. UNCHARTED is not an adaptation of the first game in the series, for example. In fact, as the casting suggests, the UNCHARTED movie is a tale about Nathan Drake's early days.

In a video interview from February 2020, Tom Holland said "Lots of the inspiration for the film has come from ["Uncharted IV: A Thief's End"] in particular," before recounting that he mentioned loving the game when talking to Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman, which led to Holland playing Nathan Drake in this movie. "Uncharted IV" features a few flashbacks to Drake's childhood (like the one seen just above) which may inform the movie, too. And then there's that airplane setpiece in the trailer, which is almost directly lifted from "Uncharted 3."

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So What Is Uncharted About?

Beyond the fact that UNCHARTED follows Drake's early adventures, and likely documents his first encounters with Sully, we don't know much about the plot! Since there is no trailer and just a few promo images, even the basic outline of the story remains nebulous.

There are a few clues, however. Official images from the movie's promo Twitter account show a centuries-old map and an elaborate jeweled cross that doubles as a key of some sort. And Nolan North, who voiced Drake in the original games, tweeted some images from his visit to the movie's set. One features the same cross, while another shows a book that seems to depict the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who began the expedition that eventually circumnavigated the world for the first time. One of his officers, Juan Sebastián Elcano, was the captain who completed the trip around the world — and who was rewarded handsomely for his success. What happened to his riches? That might be a question of interest to Nathan Drake. (Who is, by the way, supposedly named after Sir Francis Drake, who was the second captain to sail around the world.)

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The Cast of Uncharted

In addition to Tom Holland as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Sully Sullivan, the cast features Antonio Banderas, seen above in PAIN & GLORY, playing an as-yet-unknown role, and Sophia Taylor Ali as another adventurer and fortune hunter, Chloe Frazer. Additionally, Tati Gabrielle plays a new character named Braddock.

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Who Is Directing Uncharted?

Ruben Fleischer directed UNCHARTED. His most recent movies are VENOM and ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP; he also made the first ZOMBIELAND movie. Fleischer is working from a script by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, who also wrote IRON MAN and TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT. (That's Fleischer above, right, with Tom Hardy on the set of VENOM.)

 

Want to know more about Tom Holland's other big movie, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME?

 

All images courtesy of Marvel Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Pictures Classics, and Sony Pictures.

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