Sony’s Uncharted movie has been in the works since 2008, but the star of next month’s theatrical release didn’t play the games until 2016. During last night’s Sony CES keynote event, actor Tom Holland took the stage, where he talked about discovering Naughty Dog’s acclaimed adventure series while hanging out in his PlayStation-equipped movie trailer between Spider-Man: Homecoming takes.
Actors rumored to play Drake during the Uncharted movie’s extended production period have included fan-favorite Nathan Filion, Chris “Somehow Mario” Pratt, and Mark Wahlberg, who now plays Drake’s older male friend Sully. Instead, we have a Nathan Drake portrayed by an actor who was only 12-years-old when the whole project started. Speaking on stage with Tom Rothman, the CEO and chairman of Sony Pictures’ film division, the now 25-year-old Holland talked about how he discovered Uncharted for the first time.
“I hadn’t discovered the games until I started making Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Holland said. “One of the luxuries of making these films is that they’re made by Sony, and one of the luxuries of working for Sony is PlayStation. So all the actors’ trailers were outfitted with the best TVs and the latest PlayStations, and one of the games they gave me was Uncharted.”
Holland continued, explaining that during his downtime on the Homecoming set, he and his best friend started playing the Uncharted games.
“As soon as we started we couldn’t stop. I remember them trying to drag me out of my trailer, I was like ‘No no no, we’re about to complete this mission.’”
Holland’s love for the games turned into a conversation with Rothman about turning them into a movie, which had, of course, already been in the works for ages. With Holland being much younger than the Nathan Drake we’re used to playing, they opted for a prequel to the games featuring Drake as a smooth-faced baby wearing the same clothes he would eventually wear in his 40s.
You can watch the entire presentation starting at the 8:40 mark in the YouTube vid below.
Speaking of clips, also shown during Sony’s keynote was a full version of the cargo plane scene we’ve seen snippets of in the various trailers. In it, we see Nathan and Sophia Ali as Chloe Frazer performing the very Uncharted act of climbing all over cargo netting hanging out of an airplane in mid-flight.
Having just watched Spider-Man: No Way Home, my mind is having trouble shifting Holland from Peter Parker to Nathan Drake, but the action is definitely something I’d expect to see in a Naughty Dog game. Uncharted hits theaters in the U.S. on February 8.
Correction 1/5/2022 10:30 p.m.: A previous version of this article’s headline listed the console in question as a PS5. Homecoming was filmed in 2016, so it would have been a PS4. The headline has been adjusted to reflect this.