Like most everybody else, I love to play video games when I was a kid. But around the time I was heading into high school I slowly lost interest. Years later, well into my 20s and without a clue about the current state of video games, I was meeting a friend for dinner and we planned to meet at his place first. When I arrived his houses he was playing some game called Uncharted 2…
I couldn’t believe my eyes. When I thought of video games, I thought of donkey Kong country. This was like an incredible combination of a movie and video game. Uncharted I felt like a film that you played, that you participated in. I was so captivated this one experience got me back into video games. Specifically, I really like the adventure, third person, story driven games like the Uncharted series, Batman Arkham series, The Last of Us, etc.
Image Courtesy of TotalFilm
The Uncharted games are arguably the most somatic games that have ever been made. So it’s easy to see how they should translate well into great, Indiana Jones style adventure films. Well this trailer doesn’t quite knock it out of the park from me, I still think this has the potential to be a lot of fun.
Now that Spider-Man: No Way Home has become one of the most successful films of all time, all eyes are on Tom Holland to see if he can still be a draw without the Spidey suit. I think he just needs the right project, hopefully Uncharted is it. Take a look at the new trailer below:
What do you think of Uncharted? Let us know in the comments below!
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This week we got our first look at Tom Holland is Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted film, (which you can see in the above photo) an adaptation of the ultra popular video game series of the same name. Nathan Drake is basically a modern day Indiana Jones and I mean that comparison in the best possible way. Despite the similarities of the two characters, Nathan Drake isn’t just a rip off of Henry Jones Jr. Drake has stood out as an iconic and compelling, fan favorite, video game hero for years.Uncharted always seemed like a no brainer for adaptation to the big screen. After all, the games are so incredibly cinematic themselves.
Tom Holland (Right) talking to Nolan North (Left), the voice of Nathan Drake in the video game series
There have been a few attempts to bring an Uncharted films to cinemas, most notably David O. Russell (The Fighter) was attached to direct with Mark Wahlberg starring Nathan Drake. It seemed like Russell didn’t really understand what made the Uncharted series so fantastic in the first place. His take on the story was so vastly different from the source material that, except for the title and the names of the characters, it was an Uncharted film in name alone. That is well as the seemingly odd casting of Wahlberg as Drake, made me breath a sigh of relief when this particular attempt at making an Uncharted movie, fell apart.
The fan favorite choice for the role has always been Nathan Fillion. Most well known for playing Capt. Mal Reynolds in the TV series Firefly and the sequel film Serenity, as well as his role as a crime author in the television series Castle. While he would’ve been incredible in the role of Nathan Drake, he had sadly aged out of the part and he was never quite a big enough meme to be considered seriously in earlier attempts to adapt an Uncharted film. However, a few years ago, he played Nathan Drake in a fantastic short film that he also produced. It’s fucking great. It’s very, very fun and really cool. You can watch it right here and I highly recommend that you take a look…
Now, we have our first look at Tom Holland as Nathan Drake. I’ve gotta say, it looks pretty much dead on. I’ve heard a few people say that Holland is too young for the role, which is a fair criticism. Drake is classically portrayed as being a bit older. In the first Uncharted game, he’s roughly between his late 20’s and early 30’s. However, throughout the series we see Nathan Drake at many different points in his life, all the way from a young orphan boy to a middle aged man. Glimpses of the character’s past as a young adventurer, we’re not unheard of in the games. So it’s not as if we haven’t seen a younger Drake in the video game series before. Looking at it optimistically, if the film does well, Holland’s ages is actually an asset because he’s certainly not going to age out of the part anytime soon. Let’s not forget, most of us may look at Tom Holland and associate him with the role of Peter Parker in The MCU, but he’s also an extremely talented and accomplished actor outside of his superhero work. As anyone who has seen the recent Netflix film, Devil All The Time, can attest to.
In another interesting bit of casting news, even though he’s no longer portraying Nathan Drake, Mark Wahlberg is still set to appear in the film in a major role. Wahlberg will be playing fan favorite character, Sully, Drake’s mentor, partner, friend, and father figure. For much of the series Sully is the closest thing Drake has to a family (that may or may not change as the story progresses, but I’ll say no more for fear of future spoilers). This is another instance where someone may point out that Wahlberg is a little too young to play the role of Sully, which is true, but it’s perfectly age-appropriate for the younger version of Drake that they’re going for here. Casting Wahlberg still makes him the older mentor figure, without changing the age gap between the two characters. Holland has already shown his ability to play protégé opposite a superstar actor without letting himself get overshadowed. Mark Wahlberg wouldn’t be my first choice to play Sully, but I’m excited to see what he’ll bring to the role and just what his chemistry on screen with Tom Holland will look like. The relationship between Nathan Drake and Sully is arguably the most important in the entire series, so it’s very important that they get this one right.
Mark Wahlberg getting into character as Sully in the upcoming film Uncharted
All in all, from the very little we have seen, I like what we have been shown so far. Hopefully will get a better glimpse at the movie with a trailer or poster, in the near future. Let’s also hope that by the time this movie comes out, we can actually go see it in a movie theater! So what are you guys think? Do you like Tom Holland as Nathan Drake? What about Mark Wahlberg as Sully? Please let me know in the comments below!
A young Nathan Drake and Sully meet for the first time
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. We’re on Instagram @worldsbestmedia2017. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
Like many other kids of my generation, I grew up playing video games on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. However, by the time I got to high school, I rarely played and pretty much lost interest in video games. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking gaming, it’s just that, at the time, it wasn’t my thing anymore. One of my close friends kept gaming and every once in a while, he’d send me a cool video, like the cinematic teaser for one of the Batman Arkham games and I was always impressed. It was clear that gaming had made a big jump forward, but I was just intrigued more than anything else. I wasn’t exactly ready to dive headfirst back in to playing video games.
Not long after, the same friend of mine and I were meeting up with another group of people to grab dinner and I was supposed to meet my buddy at his place. I was a few minutes early and he was wrapping up playing one of the Uncharted games. I was completely blown away by what I was seeing. It was so incredibly cinematic, with 360° visibility, amazing rendering of characters and environments. The cherry onto for me was that it wasn’t just a game, but a real story with well developed characters. I’m sure this sounds stupid to a lot of you, but for me this is a quantum leap forward in video gaming. It felt like he was playing an Indiana Jones movie. I even remember the part of the game he was playing. It was (at least for me, at the time) a mind-bogglingly cool action sequence, involving Nathan Drake and some bad guys, on a cargo plane, with an open hold door, flying over the desert. I was sold. I never looked at videos games the same way.
I haven’t played as much as I’d have liked to over the last year, but there’s a new game coming out in a few weeks will definitely change that: The Last of Us Part II. The is sequel to, in my opinion, one of the best games ever created, The Last of Us. When The Last of Us came out on PS3, it was the best story, in any medium, of 2013. The best analogy I could use to describe The Last of Us, would be that it feels like you’re “playing” a movie and that doesn’t even do the game justice.
The Last of Us, from the video game developer Naughty Dog, tells the story of Joel, a bitter, cynical, middle aged man and teenage Ellie, as they make their way across a post-Apocalyptic United States. Of course, they have to contend with weird, zombie like creatures roaming the country. Oh, and our heroes have to deal with the worst monsters of all… other human survivors! Dah, dah, duhn! I’m sure this may sound like a cliched story you’ve heard too many times before, but The Last of Us is in a class all its own. I became more invested in the character’s of Joel and Ellie than the characters in the books I was reading or the movies I was watching that summer. If you’ve ever played the game, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It was a masterpiece. A beautiful piece of art. Now, in just a few short weeks, we will get a chance to revisit Joel, Elle, and their broken, but not completely hopeless, world when The Last of Us Part II launches on 5/29/2020!
Now take a look at the new trailer below….
…And this really cool behind the scenes video from the creators of the game, as well:
The Last of Us II drops on 5/29/20
Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!
For years, fans have been clamoring for a big screen adaptation of the Uncharted video game series starring swashbuckling adventurer and modern-day Indiana Jones; Nathan Drake. Uncharted is one of the most cinematic video game series’ ever made, so it makes a lot of sense that Hollywood would want to turn the games into a film franchise. I’ll always have mixed feelings about such a beloved video game being turned into a movie. On the one hand it has the potential to make a great series of films in the vein of Indiana Jones. But on the other hand, I think this could be an amazing adult skewing, adventure series on a network like HBO, Netflix, or Starz. There isn’t anything like quite like it on television or streaming right now. Or maybe just leave the fucking thing alone. Let the video game series stand as the amazing piece of art and storytelling that it is. But I’d have to being a lot higher than I already am, to think Hollywood would leave a potential cash cow like this alone.
Now, as a fan of the series, that doesn’t sound so bad. We could certainly do much, much, much worse. However, though I like the 2 potential leads, Tom Holland is just too young and I just don’t quite see Cranston as Sully.
As far as fans of the video game series are concerned, there’s always been one man and one man only who should play Nathan Drake: Nathan Fillion.
Pretty much the moment the possiblity of an Uncharted movie was announced, fans wanted Fillion. If you’ve played the game or seen Fillion’s work, it’s easy to see why he was a fan favorite for the role.
During the aforementioned period when David O. Russell was slated to direct the movie, he was asked by reporters if Nathan Fillion was being considered for the part. Russell didn’t even know who Fillion was (a producer had to remind Russell that Filion had, in fact, screen tested) Of course this made the possibility of an adaptation by Russell even less popular with the fans and Russell (THANKFULLY) eventually left the project.
Now the Internet is buzzing about an Uncharted short film that went viral. Filmmaker Allan Unger directed a short 16 minuet film starring Nathan Fillion as Drake, Stephen Lang of Avatar as Nathan’s old friend and mentor Sully, and Episodes’ Mircea Monroe as Nathan’s wife, Elena. As for the short film, well… it’s FUCKING AWESOME! Anyone who thought Fillion has aged out of the role is proven completely wrong with this film. Not only is his dialogue pitch perfect, but he nails some pretty impressive stunts. Fillion is JUST. FUCKING. PERFECT. for Drake. Don’t take my word for it! Watch it here:
A lot of other film reporters have said things like this the “best video game adaptation we’ve seen yet.”. I dont think that’s hyperbole. Yes, its a 16 minuet short film, but I doubt you’d find a total of 16 minuets of quality filmmaking spread across every video game movie made (OK, OK, Ryan… the Resident Evil movies have their moments). I do think the idea that Fillion has aged out of the role can be put to rest after watching this. He is absolutely capable of crushing it as Nathan Drake. I also thought Stephen Lang and Mircea Monroe were very well cast as Sully and Elena, respectively. Don’t forget that by the time Uncharted 4 takes place, Drake is definitely an older guy (slowly) approaching middle age.
Never say never, but as much as this short film has blown up the internet, it’s still unlikely that the current plans for the Uncharted feature length film will be scrapped in favor of an expansion of this project. But there is good news! According to EW.com and several other news outlets, due to it’s popularity this could lead to a web series with full length episodes. Unger has apparently already been contacted by the people who make these descsions, regarding another possible Uncharted project with this cast. So make sure you share this video on Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. Unger’s Twitter handle is @Allan_Unger and Fillion’s is @NathanFillion Send this short to anyone you can. The more people who see it, the more likely we will get to see more of Filion’s adventures as Nathan Drake.
All I know is that seeing this short was an absolute fucking delight as long time fan of the Uncharted games, who’s ALWAYS wanted to see Fillion in the role. I’m happy to say he knocks it out of the fucking park! Let’s hope we get to see more!
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