‘Uncharted’ Ends Video Game Movie Curse With $106M Worldwide Weekend

Sony’s Uncharted overperformed this President’s Day weekend, earning a rousing $44 million over its Fri-Mon frame and a likely $51 million over its Fri-Mon debut. That’s the biggest domestic debut of 2022, easily eclipsing Scream’s $33 million MLK weekend launch. Among video game openings, it’s behind (sans inflation) only Sonic the Hedgehog ($58 million over the Fri-Sun portion of a $70 million President’s Day launch in 2020), Pokémon: Detective Pikachu ($56 million in 2019) and Tomb Raider ($47 million in 2001). It’s also Sony’s fourth straight “big” IP release (all due respect to Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City) to open above $44 million. It sits alongside Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($90 million), Ghostbusters: Afterlife ($44 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260 million). For a film that was in development hell for over a decade and had all the hallmarks of a desperate “IP for the sake of IP” offering, what went right?  

Lousy reviews notwithstanding, Uncharted was sold not as a faithful adaptation of your favorite video game, but rather as an old-school adventure flick with old-school treasure hunts and action scenes. While it was a “prequel for the sequel” origin story, it featured plenty of Nathan Drake wearing the video game costume doing Drake-type activities (jumping, fighting, shooting, etc.). It paired a hot young star (Tom Holland, fresh off Spider-Man: No Way Home) with a previous generation’s butts-in-seats draw (Mark Wahlberg), plus Antonio Banderas as the baddie for extra value. Tati Gabrielle has been in quite a bit of “shows your kids watch” television (The 100, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, You, etc.), so that didn’t hurt. This doesn’t mean Tom Holland is now a butts-in-seats movie star, as this could just be his Snow White and the Huntsman (which opened with $55 million in the middle of Kristen Stewart’s Twilight tenure), but it won’t hurt his asking price. 

_{“This result is yet another extraordinary testament to the appetite for the theatrical experience that Sony Pictures bet on,” stated Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group President Josh Greenstein. “Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg are brilliant together. Thank you to our sister company, PlayStation, for their incredible partnership, and all the many people who worked so hard to bring this film to life in a big, theatrical way.”}

We must acknowledge that the “video game movie curse” is no longer a thing. The Angry Birds Movie became the second such film to top $100 million domestic as it raced past $350 million worldwide in summer 2016. Just in 2018, well, we had MGM and Warner Bros.’ halfway decent Tomb Raider reboot ($274 million on a $90 million budget), WB and New Line’s frankly spectacular (stop booing me, I’m right) Rampage which earned $101 million domestic, $156 million in China and $430 million worldwide on a $120 million budget. WB and Legendary’s Detective Pikachu was mostly well-liked and earned $144 million domestic/$433 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. That it didn’t earn more was partially due to being kneecapped by Avengers: Endgame and Aladdin. Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog was the last pre-Covid blockbuster, earning $146 million/$306 million on a $82 million budget. New Line’s Mortal Kombat reboot earned $85 million global and top-tier HBO Max viewership. 

Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed stumbled in 2016. Angry Birds was so mediocre that the genuinely great Angry Birds Movie 2 got Tomb Raider Trapped (named after the superior Cradle of Life which bombed because the first Anglina Jolie-as-Laura Croft movie stank) in summer 2019. Just because China flocked to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil: The Final Chapter ($159 million for a $312 million cume on a $40 million budget in early 2017) doesn’t mean anyone cared about Monster Hunter in late 2020. But we’re at a point where a big-deal video game adaptation has at least a 50/50 chance of breaking out, provided A) the IP is of value and B) the movie offers entertainment value and appeal for those with no interest in the source material. I’m perhaps overly optimistic for Lionsgate’s Borderlands, which has a marquee director (Eli Roth) and a stacked cast (Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Édgar Ramírez, etc.).  

Offhand, it’s looking at a domestic finish between $$85-90 million (if it flatlines like Fifty Shades of Grey) and $115-$125 million (if it legs out like Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Percy Jackson or Deadpool). Kingsman: The Secret Service ($128 million from a $41 million debut) and Black Panther ($700 million/$242 million) were unusually leggy President’s Day launches, and such a run would give Uncharted a terrific $145-$160 million finish. A B+ from Cinemascore is frankly useless in terms of judging audience response, but it’s not like the lousy reviews stopped folks from showing up this weekend. Will it be a 13-day champion before it gets stomped flat by The Batman? Will it leg out alongside the Caped Crusader since there’s almost nothing else opening (save for The Lost City) between The Batman and Morbius on April 1? Will we get a superior Uncharted 2 which gets Tomb Raider Trapped because this one wasn’t all that great?  

Uncharted earned another $55 million overseas this weekend, bringing its foreign total to $88 million. It’ll be at $139 million worldwide by tomorrow. And that, with a current 36/64 split which is likely to go up on the overseas side (especially if it scores in China on March 14), is why studios kept trying to make video game movies even prior to 2016. The likes of Need for Speed ($43 million domestic/$203 million worldwide), Assassin’s Creed ($55 million/$241 million), Resident Evil: Afterlife ($60 million/$300 million), Warcraft ($47 million/$440 million) and Prince of Persia ($90 million/$330 million) show that the sub-genre skews overseas even more so than most conventional four-quadrant fantasy action franchises. Now few of these films qualified as “made money from theatrical” hits, and the reasonably budgeted Resident Evil franchise remains the only successful video game-based theatrical franchise but hope springs eternal. And Uncharted is certainly good news for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (April 8).