Even Nathan Drake, with all his derring-do experience and many maps, has had a hard time navigating his way to the big screen. His hugely popular Uncharted video games have long been called cinematic, with Nathan Fillion putting his hand up as the internet’s top pick to play the Indiana Jones-esque protagonist. He even made this nifty 14-minute-long fan film as a pretty unsubtle audition reel.
After cycling through many a director, from David O. Russell (an odd choice) to Free Guy‘s Shawn Levy, the long-gestating screen adaptation of Uncharted is finally a go. UK adventurers can see Uncharted in cinemas on February 11, 2022—the first region in the world to check it out! That’s good news, even if Fillion won’t be around as Nathan “Nate” Drake.
Instead, we’re getting the boyish Tom Holland in that rugged Henley shirt, with Mark Whalberg quipping along as father figure Sully. Sophia Ali is Nate’s love interest Chloe, Tati Gabrielle is new character Braddock, and Antonio Banderas purrs as a yet-unnamed “ruthless treasure hunter”.
The Rock has otherwise cornered the market when it comes to these kind of films: skydiving suspense, jokey banter full of bravado and insults, a muscular hero swinging a flaming torch around in some cave. Can Holland step up to meet gamers’ expectations? He’s already shown stunt experience as Spider-Man, so he could be right at home in the trailer’s most death-defying mid-air sequences.
Uncharted is directed by Ruben Fleischer, of Zombieland and Venom fame. The guy clearly knows how to wield some expensive special effects, so hopefully Nate’s foray into film will end up looking like a lush, modern take on Indiana Jones rather than just an expansion of what impressed us in the original video game.
After charting a path into cinemas this February, Uncharted is likely to arrive on Netflix sometime later in the year, thanks to the platform’s deal with Sony to host their upcoming film slate after release. So really, Nathan is going from the small playable screen, to the big screen, back to the small screen. What an epic journey.
