For millions of PlayStation gamers, Nathan Drake and Victor “Sully” Sullivan are favorite characters whose stories they have lived out through their consoles in the “Uncharted” series of videogames. Now, in Columbia Pictures’ new action-adventure feature Uncharted, moviegoers will see for the first time how the two joined forces and how a young Nathan Drake became the famed treasure hunter.
Director Ruben Fleischer (Venom, Zombieland) says it’s no secret why the “Uncharted” games have connected with millions of players and sold more than 44 million copies over six games: it plays like a movie, he says, and not just any movie – the kind they don’t make anymore. “Uncharted truly captures all of the magic of what I love about film,” says Fleischer. “I’ve dreamed of making a treasure-hunting, globe-trotting adventure since I was a kid. That kind of movie gave me a passion for history and antiquity – I even went to college thinking I was going to be an archaeologist. As soon as I read this script, it captured that magical quality of escapist adventure. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be asked to be part of something special.”
Tom Holland has been a fan of the games ever since he first got his hands on them with “Uncharted 4” in 2016. “I was shooting Spider-Man™: Homecoming, and one of the benefits of working with Sony is they outfitted all of our trailers with the newest PlayStation. One of the games they gave us was ‘Uncharted 4,’ so between setups, my best mate Harrison and I would be playing. We played the game backwards – once we fell in love with the fourth, we bought the other games and caught up.”
Fleischer says that Tom Holland was the perfect person to lead the adaptation as Nathan Drake. “He’s endlessly creative, as collaborative as you could hope for, and such an avid fan of the games,” says the director. “He had a real commitment to the character and the franchise that even exceeded my own, because he’s such an ardent fan.”
Pairing Holland with Wahlberg brought out everything that Wahlberg excels at as an actor, Fleischer continues. “He can do incredible dramatic work, he’s one of the world’s funniest actors – for which I don’t think he gets the credit he’s due – and he’s obviously beyond physically fit. He has great heart, and can disguise that in layers of wiliness, untrustworthiness, and intriguing mystery. Sully features all of those different aspects of Mark at once – his portrayal of the character is spot-on.”
“The great thing about having the games as source material to base the film upon is that the tone is so well-established,” says Fleischer. “The humor, the relationship – there was a template to follow. But when you’re making a film and not a videogame, you have to make it your own. It was really important to distinguish our story from the games, to show a different aspect of it. For any fan of the games who’s had the experience of playing it – viscerally immersed in it – I wanted to give them a movie that worked as a film first.”
In Philippine cinemas February 23, Uncharted is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Use the hashtag #UnchartedMovie
