A new director has been chosen to bring the hit Naughty Dog video game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, to life on the big screen.

Sony Pictures has entered into negotiations with Neil Burger to both write and direct the adaptation, which follows explorer Nathan Drake as he follows the clues left by his ancestor, Sir Francis Drake, toward a great (and dangerous) treasure.

Burger hasn’t done a ton of movies so far, but he wrote and directed the enjoyable Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti film, The Illusionist, and The Lucky Ones, which starred Tim Robbins and Rachel McAdams. Most recently he directed the Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro thriller, Limitless, but did not pen the script for that movie.

Sony has high hopes of turning this into their own Indiana Jones–type franchise, which makes perfect sense as Drake is very much a modernized Indy, getting into plenty of life–threatening situations and spurting off countless one–liners as he seeks out long lost treasures and historical artifacts.

The Fighter director David O. Russell was attached to the project not too long ago, but he clearly wasn’t cut out for the job when it was revealed he wanted to wander from the original story and add Drake’s father and uncle to the cast despite the fact that they weren’t part of the game. It’s said that “creative differences” is the reason Russell left the movie, which is perfectly fine with any fan you might ask.

Another thing Russell had planned that fans didn’t seem too fond of was using Mark Wahlberg as his star. It was said that all the things we heard about Russell and Wahlberg were inflated a bit, but there is still the chance that Wahlberg could end up in the lead role.

The consensus seemed to be that though many people like Wahlberg overall, he’s all sorts of wrong for the role of Nathan Drake. The very obvious fan–favorite for the part is and always will be Firefly and Castle star Nathan Fillion, but Sony no doubt has reservations about whether Fillion is bankable enough to anchor their hopeful franchise.

Another possible star for the Uncharted movie could be Bradley Cooper, who’s very hot in Hollywood right now and, again, starred in Limitless for Burger. Cooper is a better choice than Wahlberg for Drake, but likely wouldn’t be all that popular with the fan faithfuls.

If you ask me, Fillion is still the easy choice here. He may not be as box office–friendly as Wahlberg or Cooper, but score a Scarlett Johansson or another top young actress for Elena and maybe a De Niro, Jeff Bridges, or any other number of great actors who could play Sully, and you should have no problem selling the movie and making Fillion the star he deserves to be.

[Source: Variety]