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Nathan Fillion-starring short breathes life into Naughty Dog’s dormant series
With all due respect to voice actor Nolan North, there’s only one live-action Nathan Drake: Nathan Fillion. The Firefly, Castle, and Destiny star not only bears an uncanny resemblance to Nate, but possesses a roguish charm that’s positively Drakeian. But with Sony’s official live-action movie stuck in development hell, filmmaker Allan Ungar took matters into his own hands. “Ever since I first played the game, I was like, ‘Nathan Fillion has to be the guy,’” Ungar tells OPM on the phone from the States. “It was a selfish move on my part.”
There’s nothing selfish about what Ungar has achieved. Uploaded on 16 July, the 14-minute, 48-second Uncharted – Live Action Fan Film has already racked up four million views and been met with unanimous praise from fans and Naughty Doggers past and present (who weren’t involved in this 100% unofficial endeavour), including creator Amy Hennig and Uncharted 4 director Neil Druckmann. “The response has been great,” Ungar exclaims. “Seeing that they approved was all we needed.”
A fan of the games since college, Ungar, like much of the internet, fan-cast Fillion in the role from the official film’s first announcement, when Mark Wahlberg was announced as Nathan Drake. While that iteration crumbled (thankfully), Ungar launched a successful film career, writing and directing MMA movie Tapped Out and crime thriller Gridlocked. But Ungar’s Uncharted itch remained unscratched, until a mutual producer friend put Ungar in touch with his dream Drake. “[Nathan] was excited. But his people were like, “If you screw this up, it’s bad for everybody.’” Ungar laughs. “I would always jokingly say, ‘Guys, forget the famous actors, if I screw this up I become the guy that screwed up Uncharted!’”
FORTUNE AND GLORY
With Fillion on board, a simple fan film turned into the biggest gig of
Ungar’s career. Treating it like any of his features, Ungar was presented with a unique challenge: how do you tell a satisfying Uncharted story in only 15 minutes? “It was about going, ‘What makes Drake, Drake? And what makes the world of Uncharted, Uncharted?’” Ungar explains. Drafting in co-writer Jesse Wheeler to flesh out the historical elements, Ungar turned in a script that told a completely original chapter in Nate’s life, loaded with Uncharted’s signature swashbuckling humour. “That’s something I really wanted to see. Writing it was really one of the most enjoyable experiences in my career.”
Opening with a lengthy interrogation sequence, as Nate is questioned about the theft of an antique bracelet, in barely a minute you realise you’re in safe hands. But with the best will in the world, there was no way to recreate the game’s trademark set-pieces on the short’s minuscule budget. This limitation, however, ultimately proved a virtue, resulting in the short’s standout moment as the camera settles over Nate’s shoulder, frame expanding before the bullets fly – a stunning one-shot homage to the transition from cutscene to gameplay any Uncharted player will immediately recognise.
“We originally had a gag with him sliding down a roof, and hanging off,” Ungar reveals. “But we didn’t have time to do it. So I started blabbing about what became the one-er.” Taking an entire day to shoot (of five days total) and filmed in full 11 times, Ungar recalls, “It was like a dance. When you bring in practical effects it definitely threw a wrench in, but I was really excited about it, and it’s turned into the thing everybody is talking about.”
SECRET SERVICE
But the spectacular ‘one-er’ wasn’t even the most challenging part of the film-making process. Rather, it was keeping the short a secret until launch. The exact nature of the shoot was even hidden from the crew, who thought they were making something called “Breaking And Entering” (fans will recognise the name of an Uncharted 2 chapter) and only learnt the truth when Fillion walked onto set in Drake’s Uncharted 4 threads – just one of many easter eggs Ungar added for eagle-eyed viewers. Ungar also recommends taking a closer look at Sully’s phone for three funny references. A fourth, cut off by the car’s dashboard, is an email from Elena asking Sully if he knows any wedding planners, d’aww.
Speaking of Sully, Stephen Lang (best known as Avatar’s Colonel Quaritch) chews on a stogie and the scenery as Nate’s bad-influence father figure. Lang and Ungar previously collaborated on Gridlocked, meaning ‘Slang’ was only too happy to jump on board. “He didn’t really understand what this meant to so many people,” Ungar recalls. “So when he embarked on this, he was like, ‘This will be fun.’ And after we released he was like, ‘This is unbelievable. Let’s go to the Philippines!'”
So, will the team head to the Philippines for a follow-up? (We’d happily watch that!) Or could they even pull a Deadpool, which was officially greenlit after test footage leaked to a similarly ecstatic response? That was never the aim behind making the fan film, says Ungar. Rather “It was to get it out of our systems.” Though Ungar does concede, “If somebody wanted to discuss another iteration of this, or a series – we never say never. But for Nathan and I, this was 15 minutes for the fans by two people who are fans.”
IF SOMEBODY WANTED TO DISCUSS ANOTHER ITERATION OF THIS – WE NEVER SAY NEVER.