Antonio Banderas, perhaps best known for mid-’90s action-oriented films like Desperado and The Mask of Zorro, has joined the cast of Sony’s upcoming Uncharted adaptation. Sophia Ali (Grey’s Anatomy) and Tati Gabrielle (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) have also signed on.
Banderas has seen a recent career resurgence, having just received his first Oscar nomination at the age of 59 for his role in Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory. Other recent credits include work with Steven Soderbergh in The Laundromat and in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. Before filming begins on Uncharted, he will appear in The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, the sequel to 2017’s The Hitman’s Wife, alongside Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson.
It was also announced that Ruben Fleischer, who directed the 2018 Spider-Man spinoff Venom for Sony, will be filling the director’s chair following the departure of Travis Knight, who left the production in December 2019. This makes Fleischer the seventh director to be officially attached to the production since it was first revealed more than a decade ago in June 2009.
Following the new director’s announcement, the film’s most recent release date has been pushed back from December 2020 to early March 2021. While little has been revealed about the details of the plot, the most recent draft from writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, who scripted 2008’s Iron Man, follows a young Nathan Drake on a globe-trotting treasure hunt.
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg remain attached to play Drake and his long-time mentor and accomplice, Victor “Sully” Sullivan, respectively.
For more than a decade, the Uncharted film adaptation has been trapped in development hell, churning through a slew of writers, directors, and actors attached to various roles. With these recent announcements, the production seems to finally be moving forward. However, fans of the acclaimed action-platformer series from Naughty Dog remain divided on whether or not that’s a good thing.
