Amazon Studios has ordered an adaptation of the Fallout video game franchise from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Variety reports that the project has gotten a “substantial series commitment,” and will also be produced by Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks.
The franchise began in 1997 with Fallout, an open-world RPG set in a post-apocalyptic 22nd Century United States. The player is a member of a Vault, one of many scattered fallout shelters scattered around the country, and they have to venture out into the wasteland to try and find new supplies and encounter new people.
Fallout was followed by three direct sequels (in 1998, 2008, and 2015), as well as a number of spinoffs: Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001), Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004), Fallout: New Vegas (2010), Fallout: Shelter (2015), Fallout: Pinball (2016), and most recently, Fallout 76, a prequel online, open-world multiplayer game.
We looked at many ways to bring #Fallout to the screen and couldn’t be more excited to work with Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy and the team at #KilterFilms and @AmazonStudios. We’re huge fans of their work.https://t.co/QvbABKmpFo pic.twitter.com/reaEuYmcdv
— Bethesda Game Studios (@BethesdaStudios) July 2, 2020
Nolan and Joy say that they’re looking to retain the tone of the games, which ranges from grim horror to light-hearted B-movie humor. In a statement, they praised the games and noted that they were fans.
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“Each chapter of this insanely imaginative story has cost us countless hours we could have spent with family and friends. So we’re incredibly excited to partner with Todd Howard and the rest of the brilliant lunatics at Bethesda to bring this massive, subversive, and darkly funny universe to life with Amazon Studios.”
The project is one of several that Nolan and Joy are working on with Amazon as part of the overall development package that they signed last year. In addition to this new Fallout series, they’re currently working on an adaptation of William Gibson’s The Peripheral. Before they went over to Amazon, the pair developed Westworld for HBO and Person of Interest for CBS. Nolan has also collaborated with his brother Christopher on a number of his films, including Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar.
Variety points out that this adaptation is the latest of a string of video-game-to-television/film projects in the works, citing HBO’s The Last of Us, Showtime’s Halo, and Borderlands.
Amazon didn’t reveal when to expect the series to start production or begin streaming. Hopefully, it’ll be sometime before the apocalypse.
