The creative duo behind HBO's Westworld is developing a Fallout TV series for Amazon Studios. Fallout is a hit video game franchise from Bethesda Game Studios that spans multiple sequels, spin-offs, and the most recent addition, an online multiplayer game called Fallout 76. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy brought Michael Crichton's sci-fi film Westworld to the small screen with their hit HBO adaptation but have since signed a massive overall deal at Amazon Studios in 2019.
Fallout fans have clamored for a big or small screen adaptation for years. There have been several attempts to translate the sprawling 50-80 hour games to film, but Bethesda has been cautious with the franchise, and nothing ever managed to make it beyond the development phase. Each game in the Fallout series focuses on a different region in a post-apocalyptic version of the United States after a nuclear war drastically changes the American landscape in the year 2077. The series offsets the darkness of this grim future with a 1940s aesthetic and light bursts of levity from its satirical view of Am. The game series features mad robots, radioactive-mutant monsters, zombies, and a rotating cast of eccentric characters.
Nolan and Joy will executive produce a Fallout tv show for Amazon through their Kilter Films banner alongside Athena Wickham, Todd Howard (Bethesda Game Studios), and James Altman (Bethesda Softworks). Amazon describes the show's world, much like the game as "one where the future envisioned by Americans in the late 1940s explodes upon itself through a nuclear war in 2077. The magic of the 'Fallout' world is the harshness of the wasteland set against the previous generation's utopian idea of a better world through nuclear energy." Nolan and Joy called Fallout "one of the greatest game series of all time" and joke that "each chapter of this insanely imaginative story has cost us countless hours we could have spent with family and friends."
Other than a few press release statements from Amazon Studios and Bethesda, there is no additional information about the Fallout TV adaptation at this time. This is still relatively early in development, so fans shouldn't expect significant movement anytime soon. Plus, the coronavirus pandemic has ground Hollywood productions to a halt all over the globe, which is sure to slow down any forward momentum should Nolan and Joy somehow already have a pilot script ready to shoot. There's also Westworld season 4 at HBO for Nolan and Joy to focus on, but that doesn't necessarily prevent them from making progress on Fallout, as they could easily executive produce both shows if they hire a showrunner for Fallout.
None of that stops wild speculation about what a Fallout series could look like. The games are massive, with huge set pieces, enormous sets, and countless potential special effects to bring all the robots, zombies, and monsters to life. There's also a multitude of directions the Fallout TV show can take in terms of story and main character. Each game in the series follows a different protagonist (always controlled by the player) who emerges from one of the various elaborate fallout shelters (called "Vaults" in the game) to assess the world around them or venture out into the broader American landscape to solve some immediate problem. Very few characters recur from game to game, allowing the show's future writers to cherry-pick from a wide variety of scenarios to build their version of the Fallout story.
Source: Fallout via Twitter, Bethesda