In a video that appeared on YouTube last night, a fan of Nathan Fillion and UNCHARTED got a chance to ask the future UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune film director about casting Nathan Fillion as Nathan Drake. His answer might surprise you: he doesn’t know [Nathan Fillion]. We’ve embedded the video below:
Fans of the franchise now have more to worry about after the puzzling revelation that Mark Walhberg may have been slated (even though we confirmed casting has not taken place by industry sources) and the involvement of Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Now it seems as if David O. Russell is oblivious to the fan feedback and campaigns for their favorite actors. If there was a time when fans wondered just how wrong a movie based on their favorite franchise could go, our readers and many across Twitter are saying now is the time.
UPDATE: We asked the original poster of the video, actor Greg Blessing, if he could tell us a little more about the event:
First off, I was at Arclight Hollywood on Friday at a special screening of The Fighter, especially because I knew David O. Russell would be attending. I wasn’t happy about the rumor that Mark Walhberg might be Nathan Drake in the UNCHARTED film. That’s not a knock against Mark, he’s a great actor in many of the roles he’s given, but I didn’t feel like he was the right choice for Nathan Drake. As another fan had said, ‘in order for [Walhberg] to play Drake, he’d have to be a nice, naive, funny, slightly charming guy.’ Mark isn’t the greatest in pulling these traits off. He certainly tried in The Happening and The Lovely Bones, but we saw how those turned out… Anyways, David O. Russell said at the Q&A that he is friends with Mark, especially since they have have done three movies together, which leads me to believe that David uses Mark because of his name, his clout. If you see The Fighter, the movie actually belongs to Christian Bale, and if there are any Oscars to be handed out for the acting, Christian is almost guaranteed to will win the Academy Award. After the Q&A, David told me that it’s all up to the studio. Despite how David appears in the video, I’d like to point out that he was a lot nicer when I was talking to him off frame. In the video, as you can see, he was in a rush to get to another Q&A session, and other people were trying to talk to him. But the second I came up to him and said, “Hey, dude, can I talk to you about UNCHARTED?,” he looked me right in the eyes the whole time and seemed interested. That said, I get the impression David hasn’t played the games or read fan feedback about the casting rumors, but maybe he will now, as he probably didn’t realize how passionate us gamers are about UNCHARTED, seeing as it’s the Indiana Jones of the video game industry.
Greg can be reached at his twitter account, @thecallback. Him and his girlfriend “are huge fans of UNCHARTED,” so we can appreciate him making sure David’s aware of the feedback and buzz. Thanks to our reader, NITR8, for the tip!
What are your thoughts? Is David O. Russell simply caught off guard, or is it possible he really is unaware. Let us know in the comments below!
Reminder: While All Things UNCHARTED has a resource for the ‘Nathan Fillion for Nathan Drake’ campaign due to overwhelming reader requests in the past, we do not officially endorse any actor as our readers have differing opinions and favorites.