Tom Holland's 'Uncharted' loses yet another director, this time Travis Knight moves out over scheduling issues
‘Uncharted’, Sony’s long-in-development adaptation of the popular video game starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, has lost yet another director. Filmmaker Travis Knight, who made his directorial debut with 2018's ‘Bumblebee’ is exiting the movie.
According to insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, scheduling issues seem to be at fault. Reportedly, the schedule for Holland’s upcoming ‘Spider-Man’, also a Sony film due out July 16, 2021, may push ‘Uncharted’ further from its current December 18, 2020 date.
According to Deadline, Sony still intends to move forward with the film with a new director and a new release date on ‘Uncharted’. The film is an action-adventure based on the PlayStation video game series created by Naughty Dog and published by PlayStation. The game centers around adventurer and treasure hunter Nathan Drake, played by Holland. Wahlberg will play a man called Sully, Drake’s closest friend who bails him out of trouble. The game has sold more than 41 million copies to date.
According to Variety, insiders said the schedule-move was sudden.
Knight is the second director to leave the project after filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg of ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ departed earlier this year. That wasn’t the only personnel change the movie saw. The project that has been in the works since 2008, was supposed to be directed by Canadian filmmaker Shawn Levy before Trachtenberg took over. Levy, among other things, is known for his work in ‘Stranger Things’.
Levy, however, was not the first director to head the project. According to Gamespot, Prior to Levy, Seth Gordon of ‘The King of Kong' fame was signed as director for ‘Uncharted’. The report added that Neil Burger (‘Limitless’) and David O Russell (‘Silver Linings Playbook’) have also been at the helm of ‘Uncharted’ at one point.
Like the directors, the writing team too has seen some changes. While Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway have written the most recent script, the first draft was penned by Joe Carnahan.
Charles Roven and Alex Gartner are producing ‘Uncharted’ for Atlas Entertainment. Avi and Ari Arad of Arad Productions are also in the mix. PlayStation Productions' Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan are executive producers.