EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is negotiating with
Travis Knight to direct
Uncharted, the Sony Pictures film adaptation of the massive selling PlayStation game.
Tom Holland remains attached to star and has been squarely in the mix in the discussions for Knight to come aboard after
Dan Trachtenberg exited. The film will begin production early next year.
Knight directed the Transformers spinoff
Bumblebee, and
Kubo and The Two Strings. He cut his teeth as lead animator for stop-motion animation studio Laika, on films that have included
Coraline, The Boxtrolls and
ParaNorman.
Bumblebee was his live action directing debut.
Charles Roven and
Alex Gartner are producing for Atlas Entertainment and
Avi Arad and
Ari Arad for Arad Productions.
Scripted by
Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and
Rafe Judkins, the
Uncharted film has a story line that captures the protagonist as a young man, as he grows into the treasure hunter Nathan Drake. The video game series was created by Naughty Dog and published by PlayStation and has sold over 41 million copies to date. The film will become the first feature production of Sony
PlayStation Productions, which was set up on the Sony lot last year by Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan. They will be executive producers.