Sony’s long-gestating Uncharted movie will finally start shooting in 2017, according to director Shawn Levy.
Levy – a man behind such family friendly big screen capers as Night At The Museum and The Pink Panther – revealed his intentions to get moving on Uncharted in an interview with Collider.
He said:
I am unabashedly thrilled to be making that next year. I’m definitely not filming before March. The goal is to film in the late spring, early summer.
Levy only officially joined the project back in October, teaming with Joe Carnahan, who’s also working on the upcoming Bad Boys sequel. Carnahan is set to produce, and has spent quite some time working on the script (which he feels is great).
Meanwhile, Levy spoke to Collider of his love of the Uncharted franchise and its ‘cinematic quality.
He explained:
I’ve been interested in this project for years. I’ve played and loved every iteration of the game. I think it’s largely a popularly accepted notion that it’s as cinematic a game as we’ve had, maybe ever, certainly of late. And it’s cinematic in that it’s not only wildly visual, but it’s really rooted in character and a very specific tone and a sense of fun, right? When is the last great, fun, f**king action-dynamic, treasure-hunting movie? Right? It’s not Indiana Jones, it’s not National Treasure; it’s very specific, it’s all kind of anchored in Nathan’s tone.
Levy went on to stress that despite our potential cynicism, the Uncharted movie is definitely going ahead as planned (for a change).
As soon as Levy is done directing his episodes of Stranger Things season two, he’ll turn his attention to Nathan Drake and friends.
Also in the interview, the director brought up Carnahan’s recent comments that the Uncharted movie is ‘Anti Indiana Jones’:
I do think that where he’s telling the truth is that, Indiana Jones, people compare Uncharted to it because both are treasure-hunting movies, but Indy was academic, there was nobility and a kind of well-intentioned … he actually was heroic whereas Drake, the last thing he would ever call himself or be called is heroic. And if he has heroic qualities within him, they’re in spite of his rogue nature.
Levy also briefly touched on the all important subject of casting Nathan Drake himself.
He teased that he’s not taking suggestions from Twitter (good), that conversations are happening, and that the actor taking on Drake has to be ‘ruggedly handsome’.
I’ll be waiting for their call.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.