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Columbia and Avi Arad Adapting Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

by Alex Billington
June 26, 2009

Columbia Pictures has announced (via THR) that Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad and Alex Gartner will partner together to produce an adaptation of the PlayStation 3 game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune published by Sony. The action-adventure video game has a story that follows a descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue. The studio hired Kane & Lynch and the new Hitman screenwriter Kyle Ward to pen the adaptation but they haven't hired a director yet.

This sounds like it's Sony's response to Warner Brothers' new attempt to reboot Lara Croft. The game bears a few similarities to the Tomb Raider series. From Wikipedia: "The creators envisaged the main protagonist, Nathan Drake, as more of an everyman character than Lara Croft, shown as clearly under stress in the game's many fire fights, with no special training and constantly living at the edge of his abilities." Sure it's a different character, but still, it's a tropical archeologist action movie. Sadly, I don't think any number of hot shot producers, even former Marvel exec Avi Arad, will be able to pull off a good adaptation. Who knows?

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Raymond

I love the game, and to any who ask me I tell them it's the best game on the PS3 at this time. That being said, I am worried about this. The voice acting is top notch in the game, to the point where I can not even fathom someone else doing the voice for Drake in a movie. I doubt they will cast any of the voice actors in the movie, it's not the Hollywood style. Even though both Drake and the female lead in the first game had the voice actors also do the motion cap work. I dunno this just worries me, there is no reason to release a sub-par movie no matter how good the source material is.
di9

I agree with Raymond, but I think Joe Flanigan, Lt.Col. John Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis would be a perfect fit!! He has the same sarcastic senseof humor, and looks great with a gun and a purpose. Plus, he's hot, and looks very much a like Nathan Drake himself in the game.
Matt

I'm glad to hear they're coming out with this! While the history behind video game-to-film adaptations is a bit checkered, this one practically sets itself up for a film. The mo-capped cut-scenes were shot in the style of film. On the casting front, while few could replace Nolan North's engaging performance as Nathan Drake, there are certainly opportunities. For example, from the second I first picked up the game Drake seemed (and especially looked) like a character that would be played by Nathan Fillion (of Firefly and Serenity). It's certainly something that can be done and I hope that this really pulls through.
Raymond

@di9 Wow never thought about Joe Flanigan for the part, but yeah that would work very well. It would be great to see more of him, still kinda bummed about the loss of SG:A
Bo

LAME, a greta game, but the game is already a movie, so making a movie would be stupid, kind of like the bioshock movie, there's no reason to make one.
MonkeyMowse

I always pictured the lead actor and female cop from psych as the Drake and the woman.
http://www.widescreenwonderland.com Widescreen Wonderland

If they do a good job then this could be pretty cool. The only thing is: Hollywood needs to begin getting serious about its video game movies. It took a while for comic book films to jump a tier now it's their turn. Otherwise this is going to be another PG 13 action adventure movie that nobody will remember three weeks after release.
Papichulo

Yes, Yes, Y E S!
nelson

Nathan Fillion for Drake Diane Kruger for Elena Bruce Cambell or J.K. Simmons for Sully
UC Fan

John Cena as Nate Drake
kysersosai

Isn't Avi Arad responsible for Spidernam 1 2 3 and the fantastic Four??? OH YA IT"S GONNA BE AMAZING!!!! CAN"T WAIT god help us all
Fisherr

Well i am worried a little bit but we could see how they could pull it off. Another chance for this movie.
nelson

avi also prodced Incredible Hulk Iron Man X1 X2 so point is mute
L

#10 haha Great game, but the game itself is a movie. No need to produce over it.
L

#11 Spiderman 1 and 2 were excellent, even if Toby MacGuire was Peter and snaggletooth was Mary Jane. #13 moot point?
CLAW

What a massive waste of time there are better games out there that would make much better films as long as talented people are involved I say go with Assassin's Creed or even better a Final Fantasy film.
SlashBeast

I loved the game, but I feel this is an instance where making it into a movie isn't a smart move. Part of the reason that video game movies ALWAYS suck is becuase they're choosing the wrong games to adapt into movies. If Uncharted became a film, it's just going to be another "archaeologist action movie". This has been perfected by Indiana Jones and done to the point of boredom with National Treasure. I don't see how Uncharted will distinguish itself from the crowd.
SS

Shouldn't this be a mo-cap movie?
Dean

@13 Avi Arad is a producer, he doesn't direct the movies himself, so can't be sure how this one turns out.
kysersosai

@13, 15, 19, SM 1 2 3, Incredible hulk, X1 X2 X3 Fantastic Four ALL GARBAGE!!!!! With the amount of amazing material the have to work with, come on. Iron MAN = Jon Favreau and RDJ = Excellent 1 out of 8 are not good stats. What do you think the producer does? Just feeds money to anyone, he's one of the people who finds and chooses who's Directing the damn thing
Terry the Saint

Nathan Fillion from Firefly should play the lead.They even kinda look alike.
Ghost Writter

Damn, that is a good idea. I am just worried about the guy they will choose to be drake. They need someone used to work with guns, someone hot, goo looking and still macho man if you understand me. I vote Joe Flaningan for that part. The man is damn hot, he looks good and dangerous with guns. John Sheppard for Drake!!