Naughty Dog Finally Excited About Uncharted Film

Mike Kayatta

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Aug 2, 2011
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Naughty Dog Finally Excited About Uncharted Film



Uncharted's lead designer says hiring Neil Burger to direct the game's movie is "a very good sign."

When Sony first hired David O. Russell to adapt its massively popular series Uncharted into what it hoped would become an equally popular film, Naughty Dog had little to say about it. It quietly watched as Russell outlined his "unique" vision to take the world it had created, and mutate it into some sort of family drama centering around a Robert De Niro/Joe Pesci pseudo-mafia of art thieves. Now, the famed PS3 developer is finally speaking up, lending all sorts of praise to Sony's decision to replace Russell with Limitless director, Neil Burger.

"We've been impressed at Naughty Dog with the level of interest they've shown in talking to us and to Amy [Hennig, creative director] in particular in order to get it right," said Uncharted 3's co-lead designer Richard Lemarchand. "The attachment of Neil Burger to the project is a very good sign in that regard."

Lemarchand and his team aren't just passive observers when it comes to movies. Later in the same interview, he explained that they're actually "big fans" of the medium, and even went so far as to study filmmaking techniques when first designing Uncharted for Sony. "[We] set out to make the most cinematic character action games that have ever existed," Lemarchand said. "We're happy with what we've been able to achieve in that regard."

With such an emphasis on making the Uncharted games film-like, it's no wonder that Naughty Dog is excited for Burger to take the reins. After all, Burger has already publicly said that he's "starting from scratch" instead of working off of Russell's script, and "going back to the videogame." Those are, of course, the words any game developer, or fan, really want to hear. And while Lemarchand was professional enough not to knock Russell in his comments, I still find it interesting that we never saw this sort of enthusiasm back when the Uncharted film seemed to be flying so far off the mark.

Regardless, I think it's safe to say that Lemarchand knows much more about the upcoming film than any of us do, so if he's excited, maybe, just maybe, we can let ourselves get a little excited too.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-28-naughty-dog-approves-of-uncharted-movie]


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Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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But does this increase Nathan Fillion's odds at the lead role? That's what really matters.

P.S. Thanks
 

TheRightToArmBears

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This is good news, the old ideas sounded like shit, hopefully this won't be the same failure as all the other adaptions.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Mike Kayatta said:
[Naughty Dog] quietly watched as Russell outlined his "unique" vision to take the world it had created, and mutate it into some sort of family drama centering around a Robert De Niro/Joe Pesci pseudo-mafia of art thieves.
What? WHAT?!

What is wrong with these people? Why does everything have to be reinvented, rebooted or reimagined? If this guy really wanted to make such a "unique" movie, why do it with an existing franchise?

This is Uncharted, it's not like there's a great deal of depth that you can read into. Just stick Nathan Fillion in Drake's outfit, give him a pretty lady and tell him to go shoot stuff!

Sounds like the project is finally heading in the right direction though. I might actually follow this with some interest.
 

Sylocat

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Nov 13, 2007
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If you make a movie out of a game franchise whose plot is itself a knockoff from a preexisting movie franchise, I'm not sure what else you can reasonably expect to get.

At least Russell's vision sounded somewhat original. As it stands, it looks like they're just making another half-assed Indiana Jones/National Treasure knockoff, which is all the Uncharted games (or at least, the cutscenes thereof) WANTED to be. Naughty Dog's vision is hardly sacred.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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hm, i tend to agree with alot that naughty dog does so if they like this then i can more then likely add my thumbs up to this also.

so keep on goin! can't wait to see how this movie will turn out.
 

Bradeck

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I have to say, I'm pretty sure I could make alot of money with my handycam, Nathan Fillion, Emily Rose, and a few explosions. Filmed in Hawaii, I could do the whole thing with a budget of about 4 million, and I guarantee there would be at LEAST that many who would watch anything with Mr. Fillion in it.

I await your call Sony, don't disappoint me.
 

Mike Kayatta

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Sylocat said:
If you make a movie out of a game franchise whose plot is itself a knockoff from a preexisting movie franchise, I'm not sure what else you can reasonably expect to get.

At least Russell's vision sounded somewhat original. As it stands, it looks like they're just making another half-assed Indiana Jones/National Treasure knockoff, which is all the Uncharted games (or at least, the cutscenes thereof) WANTED to be. Naughty Dog's vision is hardly sacred.
Naughty Dog's vision is sacred in so much as they wrote the source material. I'm not sure what version of Uncharted could be more sacred, if any is. My thought on Russell's idea is that yes, fine, mayyyybbbee it would have been okay, but it's not Uncharted! He just wanted to write a random movie that he would be interested in, and slap it with well-known character names from a popular IP and a recognizable title to make it sell. If he wants to make some random junk version of Goodfellas, more power to him, just don't waste the Uncharted franchise on it.
 

Random Argument Man

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Neil Burger? The director of Limitless? The movie that could've been something great to remember but decided to play safe and "limit" its own potential?

Because my only worry is if he decides to play it safe instead of trying something.
 

HobbesMkii

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Covarr said:
But does this increase Nathan Fillion's odds at the lead role? That's what really matters.

P.S. Thanks
Unless he was a total dick on the set of Limitless, I can see Burger bringing in Bradley Cooper.
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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Covarr said:
But does this increase Nathan Fillion's odds at the lead role? That's what really matters.

P.S. Thanks
He's a 40-year-old TV actor. Raising his odds still wouldn't exactly count for much.

HobbesMkii said:
Covarr said:
But does this increase Nathan Fillion's odds at the lead role? That's what really matters.

P.S. Thanks
Unless he was a total dick on the set of Limitless, I can see Burger bringing in Bradley Cooper.
I can see that too, now that you mention it.

OT: These things are always crap, I don't know why gamers insist on giving them the time of day.
 

ImSkeletor

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Woodsey said:
Covarr said:
Unless he was a total dick on the set of Limitless, I can see Burger bringing in Bradley Cooper.
I can see that too, now that you mention it.

OT: These things are always crap, I don't know why gamers insist on giving them the time of day.
I don't know about that. I liked Prince of Persia and Mortal Kombat and I thought Hitman was fine.
 

Sylocat

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Mike Kayatta said:
Naughty Dog's vision is sacred in so much as they wrote the source material. I'm not sure what version of Uncharted could be more sacred, if any is.
And I'm saying I don't think any version should be sacred.

My thought on Russell's idea is that yes, fine, mayyyybbbee it would have been okay, but it's not Uncharted! He just wanted to write a random movie that he would be interested in, and slap it with well-known character names from a popular IP and a recognizable title to make it sell.
As opposed to taking a couple of well-known IPs and recognizable titles, copy-pasting their scripts and using the Find-And-Replace function in Microsoft Word to change the proper nouns, and calling it something original? That's what Naughty Dog did with Uncharted.

An established "name" brand is a good EXCUSE to experiment and do something risky. People buy games with "2" in the title, and people watch movies based on established franchises, so why not do something different? Especially when you are working with source material that doesn't have a shred of originality in it anyway.

If he wants to make some random junk version of Goodfellas, more power to him, just don't waste the Uncharted franchise on it.
And I'd rather see a random junk version of Goodfellas than a random junk version of Indiana Jones.
 

Mike Kayatta

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Aug 2, 2011
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Sylocat said:
Mike Kayatta said:
If he wants to make some random junk version of Goodfellas, more power to him, just don't waste the Uncharted franchise on it.
And I'd rather see a random junk version of Goodfellas than a random junk version of Indiana Jones.
I think we're starting from two separate places. Firstly, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you've implied that you don't like the Uncharted series in its current form to begin with. If that's the case, there's not much point in speaking about any of this with you. Not because your opinion is invalid, but because when someone dislikes something, I'm not sure they're in a position to discuss the fine points of its adaptation. Secondly, Indiana Jones 4 and the Star Wars prequel trilogy have essentially proven that we will never, never, get another quality Indiana Jones-type title while Lucas breathes. Since Indiana Jones is one of my favorite series of all time, I welcome anything of major quality not claiming to be a reboot, re-imagining, etc. of what I loved, while still covering similar concepts. I think that the Uncharted movie has a small chance of accomplishing this under Burger, however, I think it has a much higher chance of doing so than Indy 5, or any other film. (Also, please don't group National Treasure and Indiana Jones *shiver* as you had before) I guess what I'm saying is, if you didn't like Uncharted in the first place, of course you wouldn't like an Uncharted movie based on the game. However, you offering this opinion is akin to me hating something like World of Warcraft, and therefore arguing that Sam Raimi should direct its film adaptation as a modern-day Shakespeare version of Hamlet starring Tom Cruise. Of course if I didn't like something I would prefer something, anything else.
 

GeorgW

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Aug 27, 2010
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Anything is better than that old script, and it's sounding good, but I'm still very cautious. These kind of things are never any good, and the Uncharted license isn't all that great for movies in the first place. I'll wait and see I guess.
 

Beautiful End

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I think that's the problem with video game franchises that get turned into movies: they get some dumb director who doesn't even know what the franchise is about and probably thinks video games are just lame toys or pretty cartoons. Therefore, they feel the need to "make it better" by messing with everything, from the plot to the characters and so on.

By the looks of it, this new director seems to have the right idea; at least he's respecting the original plot. So more power to him. And like someone said, not all video game based movies are bad. I really liked Prince of Persia, Hitman and...yes, even Resident Evil, though it seems to be going downhill (NO! Let's not discuss RE movies in here! I know where you all stand regarding this!).

So hey, I'm not Uncharted's biggest fan. But if they can manage to at least stay true to the plot and try to bring good actors that somewhat resemble the original characters, then I'll be one happy camper.
 

RatRace123

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HobbesMkii said:
Covarr said:
But does this increase Nathan Fillion's odds at the lead role? That's what really matters.

P.S. Thanks
Unless he was a total dick on the set of Limitless, I can see Burger bringing in Bradley Cooper.
Honestly, I think Cooper would be a better fit for the role of Drake. While I like Fillion, as any sane rational person should, he just doesn't really scream Drake to me.

All in all this seems like a better version of an Uncharted film.