Video game developer Naughty Dog created one of the greatest gaming trilogies ever with their Uncharted series, despite the third entry not quite living up to its predecessors. (See also: Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.) Given its expansive and action-packed form of storytelling, along with the gorgeous locations, Uncharted’s cinematic future seemed to be written in stone from the get-go. Yet here we are, and Nathan Drake still hasn’t graced our theater screens.
But this is not the end of the rumors, for This is the End directors Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen recently revealed to IGN that Naughty Dog has approached the duo about adapting Uncharted themselves, and not just one time either. It’s a strange choice I think, since none of the games feature Drake spending a good amount of game time stoned out of his mind.
“They’re constantly asking me and Evan to make the Uncharted movie,” Rogen said in the interview. Goldberg shared that they’ve been asked multiple times over the last four years, but despite being big fans of the game, they’ve never accepted the job because they can’t figure out an original take on the material. “It’s just going to be Indiana Jones,” Goldberg said. “If we can figure out a way to make it not Indiana Jones, it’d be awesome.” Obviously the way to switch it up is making the character stoned out of his mind, but that probably wouldn’t sit too well with a large portion of the gaming fanbase, nor would Drake be able to pull off some of the large-scale heroics he’s synonymous with. Check out a video of the interview below.
A lot of people have grown weary of Rogen’s oft-one note onscreen persona, and he hasn’t really established himself behind-the-scenes for features that he isn’t starring in. (This is the duo that wrote The Watch, if you’ll remember.) But a huge adventure flick like this could be exactly what it takes to bring both Rogen and Goldberg into the kind of conversations where weed jokes aren’t made.
That these guys have been sought after so hard by Naughty Dog is especially surprising when you consider the big names that have been attached to the project in the past. Back in 2010, David O. Russell wrote a script and was going to direct what sounded like a National Treasure-type movie, but that fell through. Then in 2011, director Neil Burger was attached to direct, but he also dropped out. And even though I shudder remembering it, Mark Wahlberg was going to play the lead, a role that Nathan Fillion has been repeatedly campaigned for. Should Rogen and Goldberg ever take the job, Fillion would be a natural fit. You hear that, Naughty Dog? Fillion forever!
Check out the fan-created Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune movie, which is compiled from all of the original game’s cut scenes.
