Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City and Mortal Kombat have tried to stand out this year, but the success has not been present at the level hoped for. A constant that some call the Curse of video game films, and which has only been thwarted by a few rare adaptations, among which Werewolves Within, Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Movie.
In Uncharted, viewers will again cross paths with Tom Holland, who will play a young Nathan Drake, and the one at Mark Wahlberg, who will play Sully. But will this adaptation of the games of Naughty Dog manage to break this “curse” ? The director thinks so and has shared his opinion with Empire magazine, the new issue of which will be released on December 23. According to him, it’s the idea that you have to give the project to big fans that can lead to failure. From his point of view, successfully adapting a game means not trying to reproduce it, while keeping the markers which make its identity:
Part of the problem is that they (other movies, editor’s note) are trying to recreate the games. Because the players had such a visceral experience, I don’t think you can compete with that. I wanted to make sure Uncharted worked like a (unreleased) movie (…) When you play games, you feel like you’re inside a movie, so you have the opportunity to bringing it to life was a real dream come true. (…) We tried to take inspiration from games when we could, but we also wanted to have original decor elements that are not part of the games at all. I’ve never seen anything like our final third act and I think it’s going to blow people away.
In other words, Ruben Fleischer thinks that being faithful to the basic material does not necessarily consist in transposing a game as it is in the cinema by replacing the 3D characters with actors. You have to bring something more, without however “betraying” what made the success of the games. A real balancing act, the result of which will be visible in just under two months. Let us take this opportunity to recall that, January 28 next, Uncharted will land on PC for the first time, and on PS5, with the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which includes remastered versions of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
