Nathan Fillion stars in 'Uncharted' fan film

ABC/Michael Ansell(LOS ANGELES) — For years, fans of Firefly and Castle star Nathan Fillion have made no secret of wanting him to star in a big-screen version of the best-selling Uncharted video game series. While the series’ main character Nathan Drake is voiced and performed by video game veteran Nolan North, treasure hunter Nathan Drake is basically a spitting image of Nathan Fillion.

The affable actor has teased playing the character for years, but now he’s gone one further, surprising fans ahead of this weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con by starring as Drake in a short “fan film” he co-produced.

The professionally-made, 14-minute film — which also stars Avatar‘s Stephen Lang as Drake’s longtime confidante Sully — is similar to a fan-made Might Morphin’ Power Rangers film a few years back. Like that film, the Uncharted short is not affiliated with the original’s producers — in this case, the game company Naughty Dog.

The snippet shows Fillion-as-Drake in a familiar situation: getting captured and roughed up, all in an effort to find a mysterious map that can lead to a sunken treasure. 

Incidentally, a big screen version of the Uncharted games was to be a vehicle for Mark Wahlberg at one point, but the project hit the skids. Perhaps the Fillion short could revive the effort in the same way that the fan reaction to deliberately leaked Deadpool footage voiced by Ryan Reynolds led to the birth of that movie franchise.

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