Tom Holland’s $400 Million Fantasy Movie Is A Streaming Hit At The Perfect Time For A Sequel

Published Aug 20, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

After a four-year hiatus from the big screen, Tom Holland is back with a vengeance to singlehandedly save the box office. Between his role as Odysseus’ son Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and his long-awaited return as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Holland has grossed more than $3 billion worldwide in just the past month. Whenever anyone has gone to a movie theater in the last few weeks, there’s been about a 95% chance they were going to see Tom Holland.

Before the double whammy of the Spider-Odyssey, Holland’s last movie was Uncharted way back in 2022. Drafting off the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Uncharted grossed a whopping $400 million at the global box office. Sony declared it a new movie franchise and wasted no time greenlighting a sequel. But now, nearly half a decade later, that sequel is still no closer to becoming a reality.

Holland’s Uncharted movie received mixed reviews from critics and gamers alike, but it’s still hugely popular with audiences. On the heels of Spider-Man and The Odyssey, Uncharted is once again trending on streaming. In the United States, it’s got the number 10 spot on Amazon Prime’s top 10 titles. Uncharted is one of those fun, breezy, mass-appeal movies that always does well on streaming, and with Holland becoming the box office king this summer, now is the time to get a sequel going.

But if Uncharted does get a sequel, I hope the filmmakers learn from the mistakes of the first movie and actually do a proper adaptation next time. The Uncharted movie was entertaining enough to be worth the price of admission, but it barely felt like Uncharted — and Holland’s character (despite his authentic wardrobe, complete with the “Sic parvis magna” ring hanging around his neck) felt nothing like the Nathan Drake that gamers know and love.

Uncharted's Sequel Needs To Take Inspiration From The Actual Games

Uncharted fans waited 15 years to see their favorite action-adventure video game franchise on the big screen. Sony let the perfect casting choice slip through their fingers as Nathan Fillion aged out of the role. Development on the Uncharted movie took so long that Mark Wahlberg was initially cast as Drake, but had to be recast as Drake’s wise old mentor Sully by the time cameras started rolling.

The first movie gave Drake a whole new origin story, nothing like his backstory from the games, and Holland played him more like a young, naive James Bond than the wisecracking thrill-seeker from the Uncharted games. The film borrowed a couple of iconic set-pieces from the games, like the auction heist and the cargo plane skydive, but it had an entirely new plot (the blandest, most generic Indiana Jones-lite plot imaginable). That first Uncharted movie took more direct influence from Tom Cruise in Cocktail than any of its namesake video games.

If an Uncharted movie sequel does get off the ground, that needs to change. The first film set up Nate’s brother, Sam, so the sequel is primed to adapt arguably the best of the games, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. But really, any of the games will do. Now that Holland’s Nate has been established, maybe we can get a proper adaptation of the first game, Drake’s Fortune, or better yet, the superior sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

As an Uncharted fan, I was really excited to see those games brought to life in a movie. And four years after a movie called Uncharted came to theaters, I’m still hoping to see that one day. The first film is a good start, but the sequel needs to bring in more familiar elements like Elena and Sully’s mustache and the threat of the supernatural to really feel like Uncharted.