Jonathan Nolan's Fallout show is moving forward at Amazon
Based on the beloved post-apocalyptic video game series, the series will enter production some time in 2022
Because nobody can get enough doom in their lives today, Amazon has announced that it’s moving forward with Jonathan Nolan’s TV adaptation of the beloved Fallout series of post-apocalyptic video games. The Westworld producer is working on the series with Captain Marvel’s Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Silicon Valley’s Graham Wagner, who will serve as showrunners on the series.
Set in a distant, and very dusty, future, the Fallout series derives much of its punch from a very particular sort of distorted nostalgia, pining for the dream of a world where humanity could wipe itself out with the relative dignity of a quick and clean nuclear apocalypse, rather than *gestures expressively at the entirety of modern society*. The series blends the trappings of ’50s Americana (exemplified by a series of soundtracks that include pretty much every nuke-related novelty song ever written) with a gritty take on post-apocalyptic science fiction.
It’s not clear, as yet, which elements of the series’ wide-ranging storytelling Nolan is planning to pluck out for his show. The original Fallout centered on a Vault Dweller forced out into the wasteland to save his fellow shut-ins in irradiated Southern California; later games spread the mayhem to Washington D.C., Nevada, Boston, West Virginia, and beyond. The first game has an easy natural arc to follow (sheltered doofus adjusts to life in the wastes), but given how popular Bethesda Studios’ series revival Fallout 3 was, a return to the Capitol Wasteland might easily be in order.
Nolan will apparently direct the pilot for the series; he performed similar duties on Westworld, although most of his credits across his career are as a writer and producer. (He also helmed a single, pretty good episode of Person Of Interest, which he created and executive produced.)
To herald news that production on the show will begin later this year, Amazon revealed an extremely brief “easter egg” trailer that pretty much just demonstrates that Nolan’s crew understands the base aesthetics of the Fallout universe. And, c’mon: You couldn’t get Ron Perlman in there for a second to bust out a “War never changes” for old times’ sake?