Nathan Fillion won’t be playing Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted film next year, but fans can get a taste of what could have been thanks to a new deepfake video of the famed actor in the role of video gaming’s most popular adventurer. Deepfakes, or videos that have been altered via computer software to feature people saying or doing things they were not before, have been used for a wide range of purposes both dangerous and benign, and one of the latter categories involves re-imagining video game characters to be portrayed by popular actors like Nicolas Cage. Or, in this case, Nathan Fillion.
Having gained popularity among the nerd community for his memorable turns in such cult classic TV shows as the tragically short-lived sci-fi western Firefly and the significantly more successful crime series Castle, Nathan Fillion has long been the actor of choice for the role of Nathan Drake in a hypothetical Uncharted film due to his roguish charm and razor-sharp wit, traits that the heir to Sir Francis Drake’s legacy carries in spades throughout Naughty Dog’s parkour-infused treasure hunting series. In fact, he has actually played Drake in an Uncharted fan film that has gained praise from even one of the upcoming big-screen adaptation’s former directors. Unfortunately, it was later revealed that Uncharted license holder Sony has instead opted for a prequel film starting Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, much to the dismay of those who wanted to see Nathan Fillion in the lead role.
Deepfake creator Jarken seems to have granted those wishes somewhat, as he recently posted a video of Nathan Fillion’s face superimposed onto Nathan Drake’s character model in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, during a cutscene where the unlucky treasure hunter finds himself confronted by his wife Elena for taking up another potentially dangerous expedition behind her back. To demonstrate how seamlessly Jarken blended the actor’s likeness into Uncharted 4’s in-game graphics, the video even repeats the scene with a split-screen display of the game’s original clip alongside Jarken’s work, which can be seen below.
Jarken’s video will likely be the closest fans get to an actual Uncharted film for quite some time, as the aforementioned prequel movie has recently delayed its production due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has put most of the entertainment industry on hold. This is just the latest in a string of missteps for the troubled project, as so far multiple directors have been both attached and removed from it alongside many script rewrites and doubts as to whether or not a prequel story with a younger Nathan Drake is even a good idea at all. As a result, the film has been delayed as far as next July, and it’s still unclear if it will be put back even further in light of all of these setbacks.
In the meantime, Uncharted fans can get a taste of a live-action actor in the role of the game’s star courtesy of Jarken’s Nathan Fillion deepfake video. The amount of care put into bringing the actor’s face into Uncharted 4’s in-game engine is pretty impressive, even if some might consider the end result to be in the Uncanny Valley. Nonetheless, it remains a fun novelty for those wishing that Nathan Fillion was set to play Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted film, a role that many argue the actor was born for.
Source: Jarken/Youtube