Sony Picked The Wrong Movie Franchise To Continue With In Uncharted 2

At the 2024 CineEurope trade show this week, Sony Pictures executive Steven O’Dell finally confirmed that Uncharted 2 is in development while giving a rundown on other upcoming movies in the pipeline. While this might be good news for those who haven’t played any Uncharted games and saw the Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg as a “jolly good time”, for fans of the iconic games, there’s really only one question: why?

I am an unabashed fan of Naughty Dog’s games, especially The Last of Us Part 2, but also love the Uncharted franchise and that’s why this announcement and Sony‘s obvious lack of ‘reading the room’ among its fanbase really gets under my skin. No one wanted an Uncharted movie then (Ok, maybe five of you did) and we sure as hell don’t want to witness another agonizing half-baked experience now. Even though O’Dell’s statement gushes promise regarding wanting to “deliver greatness to audiences”, Uncharted 2 isn’t the movie Sony should be investing their time in.

The Only Thing That Can Save The Uncharted 2 Movie Is Elena Fisher

I’m not too sure where I should start with how terrible the OG Uncharted movie was. Maybe I could start with how Sony took a very cool adventure story and characters and turned it into a boring and cliché mess, or maybe that the dialogue was so uninspiring that I’d have much rather watched the 1997 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, but I think it was probably witnessing Mark Wahlberg’s silly mush as Victor “Sully” Sullivan with an even sillier mustache stuck on it.

Although the movie did pretty well in box office sales, probably because cinema-goers were hoping for a miracle at the time and it was just right after the pandemic, Uncharted’s Rotten Tomatoes score that sits at 40% from critics speaks for itself. No hate to Tom Holland as Drake as he did what he could with the role even though he was highly unsuitable with his fresh-faced young lad’s charms, he was no Nathan (who was in his 30s throughout the series of games), and Wahlberg didn’t look remotely like the 60-year-old seasoned fortune hunter, Sully, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t need Mark to look like him, I just needed him to act well and that was a stupid notion, to begin with.

Sony had everything at its fingertips to create a faithful adaptation. The stellar Naughty Dog blueprint was right there, ripe for the picking, but instead, they produced a movie that had no reason to be as bad as it was. There are so many other video game adaptions that Sony could really sink their teeth into, like Bloodborne, for instance, or Red Dead Redemption, which would even make a fantastic TV series. Still, instead, Sony has decided to cram another two-hour lackluster adaptation that likely won’t be saved from its ‘like walking through tar’ story and unlikeable characters.

However, what could save the Uncharted movie this time around is if they do follow the game series and introduce the ballsy Elena Fisher, who follows Nate and Sully’s journey in the first game and offers plenty of comical interactions and romantic interludes between her and Nathan that would offset any smaller flaws in its original narrative. I would be very happy to eat my words if Uncharted 2 manages to pull off something great this time around, but honestly, I’m not holding my breath as Sony would need to shift their thinking from everything they thought originally worked.

The Uncharted 2 movie aside, more than anything, I could really use another Uncharted game instead of a film, but I think I might be wasting that lucky penny down the well of hopelessness.

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