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Uncharted Movie Casts Mark Wahlberg As Tom Holland’s Mentor Sully
Sony's Uncharted movie has cast Mark Wahlberg to play Victor "Sully" Sullivan opposite Tom Holland as a young Nathan Drake. This casting is all the more noteworthy since, several years back, Wahlberg was actually set to play Drake himself, with his frequent collaborator David O. Russell directing. And although that version ultimately never made it past pre-production, it turns out Wahlberg is still going to be part of the Uncharted adaptation after all.
Based on the video game franchise (which launched in 2007 with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on PlayStation 3), the Uncharted movie will serve as an origin story for the Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunter Nathan Drake. The film has passed through the hands of multiple screenwriters and directors since it entered development in the late 2000s, resulting in a nearly-equal number of release date delays along the way. Currently, however, it's set to open in December 2020, with Travis Knight (Bumblebee) directing from a script by Iron Man duo Matt Holloway and Art Marcum, as well as Agents of SHIELD veteran Rafe Judkins.
According to Variety, Wahlberg is in final talks to costar in Uncharted as Sully. The character is an American treasure hunter and crafty businessman who ends up befriending and mentoring the young Drake in the ways of his line of work.
In the Uncharted video games, Sully is voiced by Richard McGonagle and met Drake when the latter was still an orphan wandering around Colombia, before going on to become his surrogate father. The character, as you might expect, is a scoundrel who's always getting others to fund his treasure hunts (landing him in constant debt), but is highly skilled when it comes to making his way around the globe. Back in 2017, it was rumored that Bryan Cranston was being eyed to play the role, though the casting was never confirmed and, obviously, a deal never materialized. And while Cranston would've been an age-appropriate choice for the part, it's long been indicated that Sony may've wanted someone younger (like Wahlberg) to play Sully, instead.
At one point, Holland named his Spider-Man: Far From Home costar Jake Gyllenhaal and fellow MCU actor Chris Pratt (who voices Holland's elf brother in next year's Pixar animated fantasy film, Onward) as his top picks to play Sully. It'll be important for Drake and Sully to have crackling chemistry in Uncharted, so it makes sense that Holland nominated two people that he'd either already collaborated with by then or since has. Clearly, Wahlberg has always had a soft spot for Uncharted, and his screen test with Holland was presumably good enough to convince Knight and the others that he was the right man for the job. We'll find out if they were right in thirteen months from now, when Uncharted finally (hopefully) reaches theaters.
Uncharted (2020) release date: Dec 18, 2020
