In Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince, it's revealed that the evil Lord Voldemort cast a curse on the position of teacher for Defense Against The Dark Arts, years before Harry ever arrived at Hogwarts. As a result of the wicked spell, no teacher is able to remain in the role for more than a year. I'm often put in mind of this whenever I have to talk about Sony's doomed Uncharted movie.
You see, with every director that takes on (and then swiftly leaves) the project, I grow more convinced that a malicious sorcerer has cast some kind of curse on it. It's the only explanation. According to a new report from Deadline, Uncharted has just lost its sixth director in 12 years. The December 18th 2020 release date has also been pushed back to an unspecified later date. Obviously.
Sony's live-action Uncharted movie has been in some form of development since 2008, and has (clearly) struggled to get it off the ground over the years. The optimist in me was foolish enough to think that the most recent director might actually stick. What an idiot I am.
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Travis Knight climbed into the battered and beaten director's chair in September last year, bringing fresh hope that the move might actually finally get made. Knight's most recent directorial effort was 2018's well-received Transformers spinoff Bumblebee. He also helmed 2016's criminally-underrated animated feature Kubo and the Two Strings.
Knight was enlisted to replace Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane), who was signed up in April last year following the departure of Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum).
The news of Knight joining the project, coupled with the casting of Mark Wahlberg as Sully alongside Tom Holland's young Nathan Drake, left fans positive. Hopeful, even. Whoops. As it turns out, Holland's work on the next Spider-Man movie has caused a scheduling conflict with Knight - one that's effectively made it impossible for him to direct Uncharted.
Sony intends to press ahead with Uncharted of course, even though I'm sure we're now kind of at the stage where nobody except Sony really cares if it gets made. A new director and release date will be confirmed by the studio in due course. I'd love to tell you they'll be the director and release date that finally stick, but this ain't no fairy tale.
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With enough hard work and dedication, perhaps one day you could be part of the long and noble line of directors who attempted to make an Uncharted movie.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: PlayStation, Uncharted, Naughty Dog