Mark Wahlberg joins the Uncharted movie, even though Tom Holland took his role
Mark Wahlberg must be a big fan of the Uncharted games. The actor was attached for years to a big-screen adaptation of the Indiana Jones-style action series, first getting his longtime collaborator David O. Russell on board to direct, then watching with what we can only imagine was a total lack of surprise when Russell walked away from the project. Nonetheless, Wahlberg hung in there for years, only forlornly removing himself from the film after the director gig was handed to Night At The Museum helmer Shawn Levy more than five years later, where it promptly went nowhere. The actor just wasn’t fated to play Nathan Drake, it seems.
But as they say, when God closes a Nathan, he opens a Sully. Variety reports that Wahlberg is back on board the Uncharted train in a supporting role, now that it’s been refashioned as an origin story for Drake with Tom Holland as the lead. And despite the much younger actor seizing control of the part that was once his, Wahlberg’s love for Uncharted apparently outstrips whatever twinge of jealousy he might have about not playing Nathan Drake: Variety says the actor and Walhburgers hype man “wanted to return to the movie in some capacity.” That capacity will be Victor “Sully” Sullivan, the friend and mentor figure to Nathan, who often assists him on treasure hunts as the two seemingly nice guys merrily murder literally thousands of people, without so much as a twinge of conscience.
And while the film continued to cycle through director after director, taking them down like so many anonymous henchman shot in the chest by the protagonist of this franchise, the roulette wheel of Uncharted directors has now landed on Travis Knight, who made the better-than-anyone-expected Bumblebee. Surely, if this thing can bring back Mark Wahlberg, there’s also a decent role for poor, long-suffering Uncharted superfan Nathan Fillion.