Uncharted Film Loses Director Travis Knight Due to Scheduling Issues

December 30, 2019

According to Deadline, director Travis Knight has been forced to step away from Sony’s Uncharted video game feature adaptation due to scheduling issues revolving around Tom Holland’s Spider-Man production schedule. This marks the sixth directorial change since the project was announced. Holland and Mark Wahlberg are reportedly both still attached to the project, which will get pushed back.

The outlet notes that the studio will move forward with the film as they seek out a new director and release date. Uncharted was originally scheduled to be released on December 18, 2020.

Uncharted will be a prequel to the game series, taking its basis from the sequence in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception wherein the young thief Nathan Drake (Holland) first encounters his partner Victor Sullivan (Wahlberg) and in essence, sets up the events of the entire game franchise.

Despite previous drafts by the likes of Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), Oscar nominee David O. Russell, Doctor Strange‘s Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, Safe House‘s David Guggenheim, and Joe Carnahan, the new draft of the screenplay is written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway.

Based on the action-adventure video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune from Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive, the story follows a descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nate Drake who believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, from a cursed golden statue. The search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray, then is escalated when creatures — actually mutated descendants of Spaniards and Nazis — begin attacking those hoping to learn the treasure’s true secrets.

Uncharted is an Arad/Atlas Entertainment Production, with Charles Roven, Avi Arad, Alex Gartner, and Ari Arad producing. The film will serve as the first feature produced by PlayStation Productions.