Before Nathan Drake can find any treasure, someone has to direct him to it. According to the LA Times, Sony is scouting Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees director David O. Russell for its planned adaptation of its hit Playstation video game, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
Sony brought in the writers of next year's reboot of Conan, Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer, to draft the script last fall and they like what they've read and are ready to move forward. Russell tops the shortlist for bringing it all to life, something that would likely be ready for a late 2011 or summer 2012 release if initial talks with Russell go well. Sony has already placed Kevin James comedy The Zookeeper in a summer 2011 spot, so green-lighting doesn't seem likely.
Currently, Russell's boxing movie The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale is due at the end of this year, a movie generating a lot of early buzz which could land it in on one of the more Oscar-friendly weekends later this year. He also completed the romantic comedy Nailed with Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel last summer, a film that still hasn't found a release date. Rumors have also swirled about his attachment to the film version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. None of those projects suggest Russell is the man for an action-adventure of Indiana Jones proportions, but much like Bill Condon taking over Twilight and Rob Marshall directing the next "Pirates" film, it's an intriguing choice that has a lot of attention.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune follows Nathan, the supposed descendent of explorer Sir Francis Drake, to El Dorado in search of gold with his cigar-toting buddy Sully and reporter Elena Fisher. The games are wildly popular, so should Prince of Persia find all the gold in a few weeks, you can bet that Sony will start searching even harder to find the cash to make this work. The potential franchise is in good hands no matter what, with Avi Arad (Spider-Man) and Charles Roven (The Dark Knight) producing.
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