Sony's live-action Tom Holland as Nathan Drake has long been surrounded by skepticism based on the decision not to adapt one of Naughty Dog's acclaimed games and instead tell an original prequel story. This left Uncharted in the position to potentially be another failed video game movie franchise attempt, especially after critical reviews arrived. However, Holland's movie has still become a box office success despite the awful reviews.
Video game movies have a terrible history in Hollywood, so much so that many subscribed to the belief that there was a video game movie curse. There are older examples of video game movies receiving a critical lambasting, such as Super Mario Bros. or Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider. Although there has also been some success in recent years thanks to movies like Assassin's Creed show just how uncommon it is for video game movies to be met with praise.
As a result of the poor history video game movies have with reviews, Uncharted was up against the wall to begin with. Many of the movie's counterparts struggled to launch a franchise because audiences tended not to show up to the poorly received films. Even in a case like Warcraft, the highest-grossing video game movie of all time, a sequel wasn't made. With Sony already viewing Uncharted as a new movie franchise, it seems Tom Holland's Nathan Drake will return. Here's how the movie still became a box office success despite the bad reviews.
Why Uncharted's Reviews Are So Bad
The critical consensus for Uncharted has been quite bad from the beginning, although it has improved a bit as more reviews filtered in. As of the time of this writing, Uncharted has a 40% rotten critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a 5.2 out of 10 average score. However, the metrics are much worse for the platform's Top Critics, as its rating drops to an abysmal 22%. One of the main criticisms against Uncharted is the movie's failure to understand what made the games so special. This ranges from not taking enough risks with its set pieces to giving the young Nathan Drake an origin story that isn't quite complicated enough.
Of course, many reviews also note how this isn't a direct adaptation of a single Uncharted video game, as Sony and director Ruben Fleischer instead mixed in elements from various games and incorporated new aspects due to its prequel status. This created plenty of issues for most critics, including some saying that Uncharted fails to understand who Nathan Drake is as a character. It also didn't help that Mark Wahlberg's Sully was a far cry from the wise and trusty mentor to Drake from the games or that Elena was left out entirely. It was through the combination of frustrations over the lack of creativity and diverging from the games that gave Uncharted its bad reviews.
How Much Uncharted Has Made At The Box Office
Uncharted has still become an incredibly successful box office story for Sony. After completing its second weekend of release, Tom Holland's video game movie has earned more than $225 million worldwide. Uncharted's box office has overperformed across the board, as it has made roughly $83 million domestically in less than two weeks and an estimated $143 million internationally. The movie's top international territory is the United Kingdom, which is a significant market and where star Tom Holland comes from. The film should also receive a major bump in its box office tally once Uncharted releases in China on March 14th. It's unclear exactly how much money it'll make at the end of its run, but it should have no problem making more than $300M at this pace.
The success for Uncharted's box office started right away, as the movie sured expectations for its opening weekend. Instead of launching to roughly $30M over the four-day holiday weekend, the film made $51M, resulting in The Batman. Warner Bros.' Batman reboot starring Robert Pattinson is expected to be one of the biggest movies of 2022 and make well over $100M in its opening weekend. Uncharted should continue to find business as an alternative blockbuster movie to the 3-hour detective superhero film, but Tom Holland won't be the biggest star in town anymore.
Why Uncharted's Bad Reviews Didn't Hurt Its Box Office
Despite Uncharted's poor reviews, the movie's box office success has not slowed down. This could be attributed to a few different factors. The first, and arguably the biggest, is the perfect timing of Uncharted's release in of capitalizing on Spider-Man: No Way Home's release. Since his third Marvel Cinematic Universe solo film has now made more than $1.8 billion worldwide and is one of the best-reviewed comic book movies ever, people around the world have been eager to see more of Holland. Uncharted releasing just as Spider-Man: No Way Home's box office began to slow down gave everyone another chance to see Tom Holland but in a new franchise.
It also helped Uncharted's cause that the movie came out when there was little competition for it at the box office. Outside of Spider-Man: No Way Home, newer releases like big benefit for Uncharted that it is a known IP with a strong fanbase. Even if the reviews were terrible, most likely wanted to still see the movie for themselves and form their own opinions. At the very least, they'd want to see what the beloved games could be like in live-action, even if the entirety of the movie didn't live up to the quality of the games.
Is Uncharted Better Than The Bad Reviews Suggest?
The box office success of Uncharted proves that people around the world are still immensely enjoying the movie despite what critics said. Rotten Tomatoes reflects this, too, as the audience rating is 90% fresh. The film also received a relatively positive B+ rating from CinemaScore. This all suggests that Uncharted isn't as bad as the reviews said, although that is still up for debate. The criticisms levied against the movie aren't entirely misplaced and instead point to how the film could've been even better. It should all be elements that Sony looks to improve upon with Uncharted 2. While the first movie is certainly safe in some regards and nothing groundbreaking for a blockbuster, it is still a relatively fun adventure with thrilling action starring one of Hollywood's rising stars. So even though Uncharted was potentially unfairly maligned, the box office success should mean that there will be another Nathan Drake movie, which will hopefully be well-received across the board.
