2. David O. Russell
The Weinstein Company David O. Russell was first attached to Uncharted a few years ago, along with Mark Wahlberg who was set to be cast as Nathan Drake. Their success, after working together on The Fighter, caught the studio's eyes, but developments with the director and actor attached failed to progress and David O. Russell dropped the plans to focus on making Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle instead. Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, both starring Bradley Cooper, proved that the director and actor clearly have an admiration for one another and enjoy making movies together. Like Martin Scorsese's somewhat dependence on using Leonardo DiCaprio in his movies, David O. Russell and Bradley Cooper are seemingly venturing down a similar path. Many have voiced their desires to see Bradley Cooper play Nathan Drake and his handling of the actor's character in American Hustle makes him a strong candidate. It would be an ideal fit for the director and actor working together again for this project - seeing as David O. Russell has undeniably got the best out of Cooper in the last two movies they have made together, for which Cooper has been nominated for Oscars as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. In Three Kings Russell did a fine job in getting the balance right in that movie: above all others, it is the one movie in his filmography that gives him a certain edge for directing Uncharted because the blend of dark humour and action was crafted with such precision. The video-game worked so well because it had a great balance of the genre elements and there should be few doubts concerning whether or not David O. Russell would be able to translate the idiosyncrasies from the game on to the big screen. Although he does not have the same visionary brilliance as Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg, David O. Russell would do Uncharted justice, but it is hard to imagine him doing it without Bradley Cooper under his wing.