Neil Burger to direct Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

At one point, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune seemed like it had the legs under it to be a major blockbuster film for the upcoming year. It's already based on the silly popular video game which has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. David O. Russell was going to direct, pairing up with his cinematic soulmate Mark Wahlberg, coming off their Oscar success with The Fighter. But then it hit a snag, and O. Russell left the film, leaving Wahlberg's involvement in limbo. Now after a couple of months of pretty much zero news at all, Variety reports that Neil Burger has been tapped to helm the pic.

Burger is coming off the unexpected success of Limitless, which starred Bradley Cooper. He's also the guy behind one of my favorite unsung films, The Lucky Ones.  Burger pitched a totally new take on the video game adaptation, which the film's producers took a liking to. So to me that sounds like O. Russell's plan to feature Drake's extended family(to include Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro) has been scrapped. The question now is whether Wahlberg will stay.

I take it this also means that the script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer is no longer in play. Personally I'm betting Wahlberg is out, but I wonder what the Drake's Fortune die hards would think about Bradley Cooper in the lead?