Just like David O. Russell before him, director Seth Gordon (The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Horrible Bosses) also checked out on the film adaptation of video game series Uncharted, just as Sony decides to take a new creative direction on the troubled, long-in-development project.
The news comes from exclusively from TheWrap. Neither Gordon nor any Sony representatives publicly confirmed their report to be true, the site confidentially claims Sony's new chief Tom Rothman decided it would be in the company's best interest not to slash the budget but rather take an entire new creative direction on it, which incited Gordon's departure from the project.
Envisioned as something of a new-age Indiana Jones, the cinematic possibilities with Uncharted exceed farther than your average game console activity-turned-big screen adventure. The last draft of the screenplay came from Academy Award-winning screenwriter Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), who took the less-dramatic property on account of being a fan himself. Other previous writers on the blockbuster included Russell, Thomas Dean Donnelly (2011's Conan the Barbarian), Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing), David Guggenheim (Safe House), and Cormac & Marianne Wibberley (the National Treasure movies), as Slashfilm recounted. Various levels of talents across the board, which goes to show just how unyielding and laborious this process became over time.
Charles Roven and Alex Gartner remain producers. What new direction Uncharted could take remains a mystery, but Rothman has something or another in mind and wants to get the ball rolling in that new path accordingly. Hopefully they can just make it work. In the meantime, they are also looking for a big-name talent to take the reins as Nathan Drake, the story's swashbuckling protagonist. Both Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt were considered at one point, with the former attached for a brief period during Russell's involvement, but neither will take charge of the potential series at this time.
The goal initially was to have Uncharted geared up and ready for theaters on June 10, but there's little chance of that happening still at this point. That's no longer Gordon's concern, however, and he's also got a couple of different projects he can work on with his future plans clean-slated. Those would include Ground Control to Major Tom and One Night on the Hudson. The Uncharted video game series also alright too, with Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in stores on March 31, 2016.
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