Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion’s Con Man began as a crowd-funded webseries. But the comic-convention comedy has since spawned a comic book series; a mobile game, out Aug. 24; and a novel, currently being written. If Tudyk and Fillion get their way, a movie could be next.
The potential film would be based on Spectrum, Con Man’s show within a show, the duo told the audience at EW’s Con-X fan gathering during San Diego Comic-Con.
“We have been talking about, thinking about, what if, in the future, we could do an actual, real-life Spectrum movie,” said Fillion. “We’re actually toying with the idea. I don’t know how much of a reality, but we’re throwing the idea around.”
Con Man, which raised more than $3 million in an Indiegogo campaign, is about an actor named Wray Nerely (Tudyk) who played a space pilot in a short-lived but much-beloved sci-fi series called Spectrum. His costar Jack Moore (Fillion), who played the spaceship’s captain, went on to become a Hollywood megastar, but Nerely lives in his shadow, doomed to tour the small convention circuit, talking about his canceled series. “He doesn’t appreciate his life,” Tudyk told the crowd at Con-X. “He’s got some learning to do.”
If the premise sounds familiar, that’s because it’s loosely based on the Tudyk’s own experience starring as a spaceship pilot Wash alongside Fillion’s captain Mal in Joss Whedon’s short-lived sci-fi series Firefly and big-screen sequel Serenity. Fox canceled the series in its first season, but fans, who call themselves Browncoats after a group of resistance fighters in the series, continue show up in force at pop culture conventions.
Unlike his onscreen counterpart, Tudyk speaks fondly of the sci-fi series that launched him onto the Comic-Con scene. His character was killed off in Serenity— FIllion joked: “How do Reavers clean their spears? They run ‘em through the Wash!” — but Tudyk’s nostalgia for the series is partly why he created the webseries.
“One of the reasons why I wanted to do Con Man, was there is Spectrum, a space show within the show, where I’m flying the spaceship and Nathan is the captain. This idea of us doing it again, it’s something where my character’s still alive,” Tudyk said, before joking that he’s now too old to appear in the prequel he’d always hoped for.
Instead, Tudyk has gone on to appear in dozens of movies, TV shows, and video games, including this December’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which he plays K-2SO, an imperial droid who has been reprogrammed to serve the Rebel Alliance. And Fillion, who just wrapped eight seasons on ABC’s Castle, will appear in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 next summer.
The actors teased a slew of shiny guest stars in Con Man season 2, including Lou Ferrigno (who in one episode stages a musical adaptation of Of Mice and Men), Tyler Labine, Nolan North, and Laura Vandevoort, as well as returning actors Henry Rollins, Felicia Day, and Amy Acker, among others.
“All bit parts are people you recognize from different sci-fi shows,” said Fillion. “Con Man is steeped in meta.”
The second season of Con Man debuts this fall on the Comic-Con HQ subscription streaming service.
