Before last weekend, only three video game adaptations have made at least $44 million at the local box office in their opening weekends. Now, there are four. After 2001's Tomb Raider ($47 million), 2019's Detective Pikachu ($54 million), and 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog ($58 million), the Tom Holland-led live-action adaptation of Uncharted opened to $44 million in the United States despite the lukewarm critical reception.
With Uncharted having already recouped its budget and its box office tally growing, it appears that Sony has set its eyes on sequels.
As Deadline reports, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO, Tom Rothman, praised the staff for their efforts in a companywide email. The interesting part about what Rothman said in his email is that he described Uncharted as a "new hit movie franchise" for Sony. Although this is not an actual confirmation, the terminology used suggests that Sony is already planning a second Uncharted movie. Then again, if you watched the film, you'll know that this was all part of the plan.
At the end of the day, it makes a lot of sense for Sony to double-down on Tom Holland's treasure-hunting shenanigans. An Uncharted movie franchise is a natural fit as the source material is four mainline installments deep with two spin-offs. It would be understandable if Uncharted bombed at the box office, but it didn't. Uncharted, which premiered in the United States on February 18, enjoyed a solid global box office showing with the film expected to rake in even more in the coming weeks. It might be unreasonable to expect Uncharted to triple its $120 million budget, but a global box office take of somewhere around $200 million wouldn't be half-bad when you consider the ongoing pandemic.
Hopefully, Uncharted's success will give Sony more confidence to fast-track the live-action adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima. The last time we heard of this project was back in December when Chad Stahelski is not in any rush to get the movie out.
In other news, Sony is reportedly eyeing a live-action adaptation of another iconic Naughty Dog franchise, Jak and Daxter.
