For close to 30 years, feature film adaptations of popular video games have been battling against the stigma that they’re part of a cursed genre. The overwhelming majority of them have suffered from either critical or commercial disappointment, and in many cases both. It requires a delicate balancing act, with the movies needing to appeal to the core fanbase despite stripping away the level of control that made the games popular in the first place, while still being enjoyable for casual audiences who may have never picked up a controller in their life.
Thankfully, there’s been a minor resurgence of sorts over the last few years, which came crashing back down when Paul W.S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter bombed at the box office even by current standards, while managing to offend the whole of China. And with Warner Bros.’ Mortal Kombat reboot now getting the benefit of a simultaneous HBO Max release, the next major console to screen translation is Tom Holland’s Uncharted.
The project was stuck in development hell for well over a decade before Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer managed to drag it out, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man cast as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg lending support as Victor Sullivan. The pic hits theaters in July, and to celebrate the new year, Sony have now released a set of mysterious images, which you can check out below.
While we won’t get a decent indication of how Uncharted is shaping up until the first official footage arrives, it could either turn out to be a box office smash hit or a complete and utter failure, such is the legacy of the video game genre. For now, though, let’s keep our fingers crossed that it lives up to the undoubted potential.