Watch Nathan Fillion Play Nathan Drake in an Uncharted Fan Film

Uncharted’s already basically a movie. So why is everybody so hellbent on turning it into a real movie?

Sony’s been trying to get an Uncharted movie off the ground for a decade now, but every attempt has collapsed early in development. Mark Wahlberg, Chris Pratt and Tom Holland have all been tied to playing Nathan Drake at various points in time, with directors like Neil Burger, Seth Gordon and the Oscar-winning David O. Russell fleetingly attached to the project. Release dates have been announced and quietly cancelled, scripts have been leaked, a fan campaign was memorably marshaled against Russell’s family-themed script, and basically every attempt to turn this movie-influenced game into a game-inspired movie has been plagued with typical movie business problems every step of the way.

There’s been one constant, though, dating back for almost a decade: Nathan Fillion, the star of Firefly and Castle, has seemed almost desperate to play Nathan Drake all along. He’s never been officially connected to any of Sony’s plans—he’s never really opened a big budget blockbuster, so he’s not the kind of guy a studio would build a massive would-be franchise around—but he’s definitely got the right look to play Drake, and both are known for constantly spouting wise ass dad jokes in an apparent attempt to come off as charming. If it wasn’t for the whole business side of the film industry—the extreme reluctance to pump the kind of money an Uncharted movie would need into a project that wasn’t frontlined by a genuine movie star like Tom Cruise or The Rock, which is how we wind up with Scarlett Johansson getting cast as Asian and trans characters—Fillion would be about he best possible pick to play Drake. This is Hollywood, though, so there’s no reason to think Fillion would ever get the chance.

That’s probably why Fillion took the matter into his own hands. Fillion stars as Drake into a 15-minute Uncharted fan film that was posted to YouTube today. Directed by the Canadian action film director Allan Unger, the live action film captures the look and feel of Uncharted cut scenes, with Fillion making for a pretty damn accurate Nathan Drake. You’ll also see cameos from other Uncharted characters (Stephen Lang makes a fine Sully, but c’mon, that’s clearly Bruce Campbell’s role to lose), and a closing sting that captures how almost every chapter in every Uncharted game ends. If, for some reason, you’ve longed for a live action Uncharted film, and especially if you believe Fillion is the only Drake for you, you’ll probably want to watch this thoroughly unofficial short. You can find it below.