Mark Wahlberg To Star In David O. Russell's 'Uncharted'; Robert De Niro And Joe Pesci Sought For Roles

Sometimes a healthy skepticism for rumor makes one look foolish when one turns out to be true. Hopefully you can't blame me for chuckling a bit when we heard that David O. Russell wants Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci to join the cast of his video game adaptation Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. But according to Mark Wahlberg, who says he's set for the lead role, that's exactly who the director is hoping to land.

First up: sorry Nathan Fillion; we might have liked you in the lead role for Uncharted, too, but looks like the role belongs to Mark Wahlberg."David is one of the best writer/directors I've ever worked with," the actor says. "The idea that he has [for Uncharted] is just insane. So hopefully we'll be making that movie this summer."

Not a big surprise, as the actor and David O. Russell have now done three films together. (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees and The Fighter) Seems natural that, for his biggest film yet, Mr. Russell would want an actor with whom he's got a strong working relationship. And there's the fact that the Russell / Wahlberg pairing has led to some of the best work of the actor's career, so hopefully this will be good news for Uncharted. (I say this without having seen The Fighter, however.)

And then there's the Goodfellas reunion. When asked about the rumor of the two actors appearing, Mark Wahlberg told MTV:

That's who he wants to write the parts for. I talked to Pesci about it and I know David's people have talked to [Robert De Niro]... I'm obviously in whatever David wants to do but the idea of it is so off the charts: De Niro being my father, Pesci being my uncle. It's not going to be the watered-down version, that's for sure.

Landing Joe Pesci would be a coup — he's only done two films since 1998 (Love Ranch and Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd) — and landing him with Robert De Niro would be huge. And, as we speculated last time this rumor cropped up, the roles that we're hearing for the two, and the fact that Mark Wahlberg says the director's overall idea is insane, suggests that the script is throwing out a lot of the video game story and taking some new direction.