Man, this is just not a good week for Tom Holland and Sony. First the news broke on Tuesday that Marvel and Sony were disbanding their Spider-Man partnership, meaning that Holland’s version of the Web-Slinger can no longer participate in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now the news has come out that Uncharted, which is also a Sony production and has Holland set to star, has lost its director, Dan Trachtenberg.
No reason was provided for why for why Dan Trachtenberg is no longer working on Uncharted, but according to Deadline, Sony is moving quickly to find his replacement for the adaptation of the same-named video game property by summer’s end. The outlet also noted that filming is still scheduled to begin early next year, and that the Uncharted movie is now set to be the first feature production under Sony Playstation Productions, which makes sense given its roots.
Dan Trachtenberg, whose directorial credits include 10 Cloverfield Lane and the pilot episode of Amazon’s The Boys, is just the latest director to walk away from Uncharted. Shawn Levy was Trachtenberg’s predecessor on the project, and before him, folks like David O. Russell and Neil Burger were being primed to sit in the director’s chair. Jonathan Rosenberg and Mark Walker penned the latest draft of the script.
With all the setbacks Uncharted has dealt with, I’m reminded of The Crow reboot, which has also been repeatedly delated and which Sony acquired in 2017. There’s been no major updates on The Crow since May 2018, when director Corin Hardy and star Jason Momoa exited, so I’ll be curious to see if Sony has better luck getting Uncharted off the ground or if it will also keep languishing in development hell.
Rather than directly adapt the first Uncharted game, the Uncharted movie will depict its protagonist, Nathan Drake, as a younger man and how he grows into the treasure hunter fans know him best as, hence why Tom Holland was cast. No other casting announcements have been made yet (Holland was announced in 2017), but assuming Sony’s able to find a new director and stick to the schedule, we should hear about other actors in the coming months.
Uncharted is Tom Holland’s fourth movie scheduled to come out next year. He’ll kick off 2020 with Dolittle (previously known as The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle), then we’ll hear his voice a couple months later in Pixar’s Onward, and then the long-awaited Chaos Walking is set to arrive sometime later that year. Holland is also starring in Antônio Campos’ The Devil All the Time alongside fellow MCU vet Sebastian Stan, Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska, though it hasn’t been dated yet.
As things stand now, Uncharted is still scheduled for release on December 18, 2020, the same weekend that Dune, the West Side Story remake and Coming 2 America are coming out. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on Uncharted, and be sure to keep track of what else is coming out for the rest of this year in our 2019 release schedule.
