David O. Russell has dropped out of directing the adaptation of the video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. The news doesn’t come as a total surprise since a couple weeks ago we learned that O. Russell was keen to adapt the novel The Silver Linings Playbook with Mark Wahlberg attached to star. Deadline reports that Sony is hiring a new writer and they’re still determined to make the movie. A new writer makes sense since O. Russell’s take on the material wasn’t a straight adaptation of the video game but rather recast protagonist Nathan Drake (played by Wahlberg) as part of a family of treasure hunters that would include his father and uncle with Wahlberg keen to have Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci play those roles.

Presumably, if O. Russell is out, then Wahlberg might leave the project as well and he has plenty of other movies he could make instead. If that’s the case, then expect fans to renew their cries that Nathan Fillion should play Drake.