2016 wasn't the year for video game movies that many movie lovers thought it would be, but there is plenty of hope on the horizon. One of the longest-running glimmers has been Sony's long-in-development Uncharted movie, and after years of false starts, the project just got one massive step closer to reality. Joe Carnahan has officially finished the script, meaning that the movie should be on track to actually go into production this year.

The director of The Grey and the upcoming Bad Boys 3 recently took to his Instagram to reveal the finished script for Uncharted. Not only is he done with the script, but he seems incredibly confident in what he was able to get down on paper, which is a good sign. Here is what he had to say about it.

"Now the REAL work begins. If there's a more monstrously cool action script in Hollywood right now, I wanna read it, 'cuz this thing is a BEAST."

One could argue Joe Carnahan is being overconfident, but that is a whole lot better than the alternative. Unfortunately, because of his other commitments, he won't be able to direct Uncharted, but that won't be an issue. Sony has tapped Shawn Levy (Real Steel) to finally bring the character of Nathan Drake to the big screen. So with a script finally done and a director in place, the Uncharted movie looks like it may finally be getting made. That doesn't guarantee it will live up to the promise and actually be good, but the hope is alive.

The movie will still have some other hurdles to overcome before the cameras get rolling. Sony recently took Uncharted off their release schedule, but once they got this current creative team working on the project, the ball really seemed to get rolling and it is expected that production will start this summer. That means they will have time to find the perfect Nathan Drake. Over the years, plenty of actors have been attached to the role and finding the right person is going to be critical. In the early days, Nathan Fillion was the fan favorite but he has sort of aged out of starting his own action franchise of this nature. Most recently, Mark Wahlberg was reportedly attached back when David O Russell was going to directly. However, he recently made it clear that, at least for now, he isn't attached to the part. So maybe Bradley Cooper or Chris Pratt will be getting a phone call from Sony soon.

Hollywood has still yet to crack the code when it comes to making a decent video game movie, despite having a lot of great material to work with. Last year, two truly great games were given the big screen treatment and failed to live up to the potential that existed in them. Warcraft did go on to become the highest-grossing video game movie ever made, but it failed with critics and many casual moviegoers didn't seem to respond. Assassin's Creed also bombed in a big way, despite having the star power of Michael Fassbender. The movie has tanked at the box office thus far and was absolutely panned by critics. But prior to their release, many felt these would be the movies to finally break the curse that seemingly surrounds video game adaptations.

Now, that burden will fall to a movie like Uncharted, which also has a big fan base and some great source material to work with. Sony has an allegedly great script from Joe Carnahan to work with and a director in Shawn Levy, so hopefully, this movie can get made and be the great video game movie we all hope it can be. There is no new release date for Uncharted, but with production ramping up we should be getting casting news and a new release date very soon.