For those not in the know, Uncharted is a best-selling, blockbuster series of games that is essentially the half way point between Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider.
The games are fronted by the ever-charming Nathan Drake, as he travels around the world with his best mate Sully, and sometimes a love interest or two, and they solve ancient puzzles and shoot the bad guys and generally just barely survive time and time again.
Movie makers have been trying to make a movie from his video-game exploits for quite some time now, with David O Russell (Silver Lining’s Playbook, American Hustle) attached at one point, having cast Mark Wahlberg in the lead and Robert DeNiro as Sully, but that all fell through before long.
In an ideal world, the role would have gone to Nathan Fillion about ten years ago, or Chris Pratt before he essentially played Nathan Drake in Guardians Of The Galaxy. And Jurassic World. And The Magnificent Seven remake.
Today it has been announced that Shawn Levy (more on him in a minute) will direct Tom Holland in the lead role, in a movie based on a flashback sequence players will remember from the third Uncharted movie.
Clip via nycballa417
And therein lies the problem… we’re getting another prequel, yet another origin story.
Holland is a fine actor (he stole the show in Captain America: Civil War, and showed off his impressive chops in The Impossible, plus his Lip Sync Battle was iconic), and we really hope he knocks it out of the park when Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives later this summer.
But once again the film companies are caught up trying to tell us back-story to stuff we don’t really care about. Anyone who played the games will tell you that the flashback sequences are their least favourite parts of the games.
We like playing as grown up Drake, who travels the world and blows stuff up and flirts with dangerous women. We don’t really want – or need – to see a movie about how he got to be the cool guy, we just want to spend time with the cool guy!
Sure, there’s a chance that Holland has signed up such a deal that will see him grow into Nathan Drake over the years, but right now he is a skinny, wiry, 5 feet 6 inches tall 20 year old. Drake is a gruff, buff, burly dude in his mid-to-late 30s, so we’ve got a long way to go before we finally get introduced to the guy we know and love from the games.
Clip via bowybowi
And then there’s director Shawn Levy… he’s the guy who directed the Night At The Museum trilogy, as well as toothless Steve Martin comedies Cheaper By The Dozen and The Pink Panther.
Sure, he’s redeemed himself lately (and only slightly) by directing some of the episodes of the first season of Stranger Things, but he’s not someone we’d ever associate with a balls-to-the-wall, action-set-piece thrill-fest.
We’re more than okay with being proven wrong, though.
Prove us wrong, Sony!
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