Last week we reported that Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy was the man tipped to bring Naughty Dog’s Uncharted game series to the big screen. Previously David O. Russell and Joe Carnahan were attached to direct the film, with Carnahan still on board on screenwriting duties.

Carnahan’s forthcoming directing gig with the third Bad Boys film with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence resulted in him stepping away from the director’s chair, however he remains a key component of the film. In speaking with Collider Carnahan spoke of the danger of sticking too close to the source material, “It just doesn’t function as a straight lift of the video game,” he said. Speaking with the game’s creators and voice actors he said they all “understand…that you can’t be so slavish and devoted to the source material.”

He went on, “It’s just making a great movie and trying to put as much of the game in as you can and the sensibilities of making Drake and Sullivan and so on, and beyond that, just do something original and fun.”

The games have been highly praised for their cinematic qualities, however this rarely means that a movie adaptation is an easy pathway. The archaeological focus draws obvious comparison with the antics of fellow Tomb Raider Lara Croft, as well as the iconic Indiana Jones films. Carnahan was keen to underline the differences between the two properties.

Speaking on developing the movie with new director Shawn Levy he stated, “[W]e both have tremendous fondness for Raiders…I’ve written [it as] very anti-Indy in the sense of the guy that loves museums and wants to preserve these artifacts. He’s not! He’s a thief and he’s a grifter, and he’s a scourge. He and Sully are not good guys but they’re better than the bad guys.”

The casting of Nathan Drake will no doubt by the next big news story, and after years of teasing a movie adaptation let’s hope Uncharted: The Movie gets moving soon.