An Uncharted movie has been a long time coming. Since the launch of the first game in 2007, the combination of adventuring, cinematic set-pieces and movie influences made the series seem an ideal candidate for the big-screen treatment.
But while it struggled for years to get off the ground, the ball (boulder?) really started rolling when Tom Holland boarded the project as a slightly younger iteration of the series' protagonist, Nathan Drake. Mark Wahlberg - who was attached to play Drake in an earlier stage of the film’s development - has slipped into the mentor role of Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan, and Sophia Ali plays series regular Chloe Frazer.
Uncharted features on the cover of the new issue of Total Film magazine, and above you can see an exclusive image of Holland and Ali getting into the adventurous spirit, and below there’s another exclusive featuring Holland’s Drake looking every bit the globetrotting hero on a speedboat. Check it out:
Inside the new issue, Total Film speaks to Holland, Wahlberg, Ali and director Ruben Fleischer about the movie’s journey to the screen, and how it draws on the likes of James Bond and Indiana Jones.
Of finding the right filmmaker for the material, Holland tells Total Film: "Some of [the directors] came in, and had ideas that we didn’t like, that just didn’t fit the characters, and we had to move on to other people. We took inspiration from everyone. There were very different variations of Drake, and very different variations of Sully. Some people preferred to make the game, some people wanted to make it completely different to the game. It was an interesting process – one that I wouldn’t like to be in again. It’s quite stressful looking for a director."
Fleischer, for his part, says landing Uncharted was partly down to his long-standing relationship with the studio, the director having just finished back-to-back work on Venom and the Zombieland sequel for Sony. In fact, Fleischer was first publicly attached to Uncharted in early January 2020, with principal photography starting mid-March that same year. "I was firing on all cylinders from a production standpoint,” he says, speaking to Total Film while in the final stages of postproduction on the movie. “I was just really in the rhythm of making movies."
Uncharted is set to open in cinemas on February 11. For much more on the film, pick up a copy of the new issue of Total Film when it hits shelves (real-world and digital) on Thursday, Jan 6. Check out the new cover below:
And if you’re a fan of Total Film magazine, why not subscribe so that you never miss a future issue? With our current subscription offer, you can get the magazine for half price, *and* you’ll get it before it’s in stores, with exclusive subscriber-only covers like the ones you can glimpse below. Head to MagazinesDirect to take advantage of the offer (Ts and Cs apply).
