Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Uncharted and its ending.
Ruben Fleischer’s Uncharted revolves around an original story set before the events of the video game franchise, but the adaptation also teases potential sequels in its closing post-credits moments.
The film incorporates not one but two post-credits scenes filled with tons of references for fans of Naughty Dog’s games, and the director has just explained what they mean to the future of the live-action version.
Spoilers to follow.
The story’s first moments involve a montage sequence that depicts the childhood of Nathan Drake and his brother Sam as orphans. After the two of them get caught trying to rob a museum, as treasure hunters do, Sam leaves Nate behind to avoid getting jail time.
Unlike the video games, wherein there was no mention of Nate having a brother until the fourth instalment ( A Thief’s End) the existence of Sam is a critical plot point for the Uncharted film. It was actually Sam who originally teamed up with Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to track down the Magellan gold.
He also supposedly dies in this pursuit, but the film’s first post-credits scene reveals that he’s in prison, trying to warn Nate about something that endangers him. As Fleischer breaks down in a new interview with IndieWire, it was really important for the cinematic storyline to show that Sam is actually alive at this point.
“Because I feel like audiences would just be like, ‘What reality are we living in that this person we thought was dead, we can just summon?’ So I thought it was important that even though Nate doesn’t know Sam’s alive, that audiences know that there’s a possibility of him returning in future films if we’re lucky enough to get to make a sequel.”
The film’s second post-credits sequence teases the debut of Gabrial Roman, the sinister villain from the first game Drake’s Fortune, and the arrival of one Elena Fisher – whom fans will recognize as Nate’s love interest.
“I wanted to make sure audiences knew that this is a team that was going to go on additional adventures together, and that the movie didn’t just end with them flying literally off into the sunset, but that there was more adventure to come. So the suggestion of them together in another exotic locale, and it ends with kind of a cliffhanger, I wanted it to be something where we don’t know what’s going to happen next to these guys, but we know that they’re going to be continuing on this journey.”
Whether that continuation ever sees the light of day depends on how well the blockbuster performs at the box office, where current indicators are hinting at a powerful theatrical run. Uncharted is out in theatres now