Nathan Drake may be prolific in video games but he has yet to fully make his film debut. That may be about to change given that the ill-fated Uncharted movie now has a new director. Dan Trachtenberg, best known for his work on the 2016 hit film 10 Cloverfield Lane, has now signed on to direct the project.
Variety broke the story that Trachtenberg will be replacing Shawn Levy, the film’s last director, who had to leave due to “scheduling conflicts.” Mark Wahlberg was previously named as Nathan Drake himself, but Sony decided to cast someone younger. Tom Holland, the man famous for his current stint as Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is the current actor slated to play Drake, albeit a bit younger than we typically see him in the non-flashback parts of the games.
There is still no date attached to the movie since Holland will be busy doing press for Spider-Man: Far From Home and probably Avengers: Endgame. His solo film debuts on July 5 after the star-studded crossover, which is slated for April 26.
Trachtenberg has long been associated with video games throughout much of his career. He started on a video game internet talk show called the Totally Rad Show, where the three hosts primarily discussed video games, comics, film, and more. His Twitter handle is still a reference to his time on that show. In an episode from 2007, Trachtenberg even talked about wanting to direct an Uncharted film, stating that Drake’s Fortune was “as good as many movies.”
He then moved into directing, where he shot the popular Portal short film that opened the door for him to also direct 10 Cloverfield Lane, the thriller based in the Cloverfield universe. Soon after, he also directed an episode of Black Mirror based around virtual reality called “Playtest.” Despite its dark tone, the episode had plenty of small and big references that celebrated the video game medium.
