Director Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief) is in negotiations to direct the live action adaptation of Sony and Naughty Dogs’ Uncharted series, according to Deadline. A draft of the screenplay from David Guggenheim (Safe House, Stolen) has already been completed.
Uncharted stars modern day adventurer Nathan Drake as he travels around the world, seeking treasure, and generally getting into trouble. Drake’s adventures have taken him to legendary locations like El Dorado, Shambhala, and the lost city of Ubar.The series has frequently been compared to both Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, but it has earned its own place thanks to the quality of the games themselves.
The film version of Uncharted has been bouncing around Hollywood for years now. David O. Russell (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook) was originally hired to write and direct, and the director wanted Mark Wahlberg for the starring role of Nathan Drake.
Russell and Sony soon parted ways over disagreements about the direction of the film and overall budget. Sony then hired director Neil Burger (Limitless, Divergent) to start the project over from scratch. Within a year, Burger also departed the project. Sony hired screenwriters Marianne and Cormac Wibberly, the team behind National Treasure.
It appears that Sony is once again choosing to ignore the previous completed work. The studio is reportedly happy with the draft Guggenheim turned in, enough so that it also hired him to script Bad Boys 3 based on his Uncharted screenplay.
As for the director, this won’t be Gordon’s first foray into the world of video games. In 2007 he directed his first feature film, the documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The film follows a Donkey Kong player as he seeks to take the world high score.
No word on casting yet, but you can expect plenty of rumors laced with a touch of facts in the coming months. And while we wait for the film to finally get going, a new Uncharted game for the PlayStation 4 was recently teased.
Update: Mere hours after the news broke that Gordon will helm the Uncharted film, it was announced that Gordon has also signed on to the project Queen of Hearts, which tells the story of an ill-fated affair that Lewis Carroll had, which prompted him to write Alice in Wonderland. With both scripts in the development phase, it’s unclear when Gordon could start work on either.
