Thomas Dean Donnelly

Sony Ditches David O. Russell’s UNCHARTED Script; New Details on His Departure

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 27th, 2011 at 10:41 am

Yesterday, we reported that director David O. Russell had left Sony’s adaptation of their hit video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.  No reason was given at the time but it looked like O. Russell was moving on to direct an adaptation of The Silver Linings Playbook instead.  Today, 24 Frames has new details on O. Russell’s departure from the project.  It appears that O. Russell’s script was so long, ambitious, and perhaps most damning (from Sony’s perspective), it added plenty of characters who weren’t in the video game.  As we reported last year, O. Russell had apparently changed Nathan Drake from a lone adventurer to a participant in a family of treasure hunters.  That change wasn’t totally surprising considering that most of O. Russell’s filmography explores family dynamics, but for fans and for Sony, such a change is probably anathema to what they want: their video game faithfully transplanted to the big screen.

Sony will hire a new director and screenwriter to work from an earlier draft by Conan the Barbarian screenwriters Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer.  Mark Wahlberg has most likely left the project and a summer 2012 release looks doubtful.

CONAN Remake Writers to Map UNCHARTED: DRAKE’S FORTUNE

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: November 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 am

After countless players marveled at Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and commented that it feels like a movie, Sony still wants the popular video game franchise to actually be a movie.  For those who aren’t aware of the property, the Uncharted franchise features the adventures of Nathan Drake as he hunts for treasure through exotic locations Last summer they hired Hitman 2 writer Kyle Ward to pen an adaptation even though Hitman 2 remains in development hell.  However, Latino Review reports that Ward is out and Conan writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer are in to script an adaptation of the first Uncharted game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

While LR doesn’t reveal their source, we trust their info and it’s clear that Sony wants to fast-track the production to seize not only on video game adaptation-mania, but because of the popularity of Uncharted 2 which is being called the Best Video Game of 2009.  Let’s just hope that Donnelly and Oppenheimer can get a good job done so we can move on to speculating and arguing about who should play protagonist (I say Nathan Fillion and so should you).

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