Uncharted film adaptation going back to the video game source material

Former director of the film adaptation of Uncharted, David O. Russell, who once described his version of the movie as a family “that deals with heads of state and heads of museums and metes out justice,” caused a commotion with the fans of the franchise.

Russell, who’s now left the project, will be usurped by Neil Berger as director of the Hollywood adaptation of developer Naughty Dog’s Uncharted treasure-hunting adventure series. Burger will not go down the same road Russell did. Burger will be going back to the roots of the series that fans have come to know and love.

“There’s a lot of cool stuff, actually, from the video game, if you know it,” Burger said.

Russell’s original screenplay is being scrapped in favor of Burger’s original screenplay that will more closely follow the Uncharted video game titles.

“We’re beginning from scratch and going back to the videogame,” he told CraveOnline.

As to who will play franchise star, Nathan Drake, in the series is still up to debate. When Russell was director, Mark Whalberg was attached to the project to play Drake. Now, with Burger as director, the actor who will play Drake is up in the air, even the possibility of casting fan-favorite Nathan Fillion — known from the TV series Castle and Firefly.

“That was brought to my attention. So, you know, I think he’s a good actor,” Burger responded. “I think there’s a lot of really good actors who don’t even look like [Nathan Drake] who could play it!”

Now that the project is restarted, don’t expect any news from the project for the time being, including who will be casted as Drake.

“Where we are right now is that we’re literally starting from scratch on the screenplay, and I think that once we finish it, then we’ll go to actors and see who’s available and who’s right for the parts,” Burger said.

The third game in the series, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, hits store shelves for the PlayStation 3 160GB on Nov. 1, 2011.