EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is negotiating with Travis Knight to direct Uncharted, the Sony Pictures film adaptation of the massive selling PlayStation game. Tom Holland remains attached to star and has been squarely in the mix in the discussions for Knight to come aboard after Dan Trachtenberg exited. The film will begin production early next year.

Knight directed the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee, and Kubo and The Two Strings. He cut his teeth as lead animator for stop-motion animation studio Laika, on films that have included Coraline, The Boxtrolls and ParaNorman. Bumblebee was his live action directing debut.

Charles Roven and Alex Gartner are producing for Atlas Entertainment and Avi Arad and Ari Arad for Arad Productions.

Scripted by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Rafe Judkins, the Uncharted film has a story line that captures the protagonist as a young man, as he grows into the treasure hunter Nathan Drake. The video game series was created by Naughty Dog and published by PlayStation and has sold over 41 million copies to date. The film will become the first feature production of Sony PlayStation Productions, which was set up on the Sony lot last year by Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan. They will be executive producers.

Knight is repped by CAA.