Nathan Drake has finally made it to the big(ish) screen, compliments of the Canadian director Allan Ungar and Nathan Fillion. UNCHARTED - Live Action Fan Film is an unauthorized short that stars Fillion as Drake, the roguish, intellectual treasure hunter in the mold of Indiana Jones who anchors Naughty Dog’s Uncharted video game franchise, in what looks like the beginning of one of his trademark epic adventures. (Plus: Stephen Lang plays Sully and Mircea Monroe stars as Elena.)
Uncharted fans have been clamoring to see Drake in a Hollywood-caliber production for nearly a decade. (They’ve also been clamoring to see Fillion play the character for about the same amount of time.) In 2010, Columbia Pictures confirmed that a movie was in development, but it’s been stalled for the last eight years over multiple rewrites, directors and producers attaching then flitting in and out, and conflicts with Neil Druckmann, creative director of Naughty Dog and the writer of three of the Uncharted games. The latest developments in the Uncharted movie saga so far say that Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) will be directing, with Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces) writing the script, and starring Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming) as a young Nathan Drake.
It seems to be going well. “The Uncharted movie, yeah, we’ve had some conversations with Shawn Levy. And he’s really passionate, gets it, and I think he understands where we’re at,” Druckmann said last year. “[Shawn Levy] wanting to tell a different story than the main four adventures—with potentially a young Nathan Drake, that fills in the gaps—I think is a lot more interesting than trying to retell Uncharted 1, 2, 3, and 4.”
In the meantime, let Ungar’s short whet your appetite for more Nathan Drake.