Director David O. Russell Explains What Happened with Uncharted
Posted 06.15.11 by Ryan
Director David O. Russell (The Fighter) dropped out of his own adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies last October, but explained in January that Lionsgate wouldn't give him the budget he felt he needed to make the movie.
Russell quickly rebounded, being hired to write and direct an adaptation of PlayStation 3 game Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, with Mark Wahlberg set to star in the lead role of Nathan Drake. Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies before it, Russell dropped out of Uncharted in May. In an interview with THR, Russell explained why he left the project.
What can I say, I waded into those waters of the tentpole movies, and I wrote what I wanted to write, and I feel like I wrote my vision, and the rest is up to those guys. I can't pick for those guys. I don't know what they want to do over there. It's just a parting of the ways creatively.
Russell's script took the game, which followed only the main character of Drake, and expanded it by adding several family members that would be "a force to be reckoned with in the world of international art and antiquities." Russell's additions didn't sit well with game fans or the studio.
What Russell will direct next is the question. Russell maintained that he wants to make The Silverlining's Playbook with Walhberg next, a project he described as "a drama with comedy in it."
[Playbook]'s like The Fighter — very emotional, very intense, but also probably more comedy in it. It's about a family dealing with a lot of issue — stuff I do good, that's in my wheelhouse.
Russell is also attached to the adaptation of the Boom! Studio comic book 2 Guns, and revealed that it is "really, really good, and I just finished writing that." There was also a comedy called Old St. Louis that Russell was going to write and direct starring Vince Vaughn, but the THR report declines to mention it. Russell has also expressed interest in a sequel to The Fighter, and is reportedly circling Disney's Maleficent, which is a live-action version of Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of the evil witch that has Angelina Jolie attached for the lead role.
With so many projects lined up, Russell couldn't make any promises as to which one will step in front of cameras first. "We'll see what happens," Russell admitted. "You've got to see which movie goes out of the gate first."