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Crack open a Nuka-Cola! Amazon's 'Fallout' TV series moves ahead with showrunners, director set

Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan is locked in to direct the first episode.

By Josh Weiss
Fallout 76 Trailer YT

Crack open a Nuka-Cola and start hoarding those bottle caps! Amazon's small-screen adaptation of Bethesda's hit Fallout video game franchise just received a Stimpak shot to the arm with the hiring of co-showrunners: Geneva Robertson-Dworet (co-screenwriter on Tomb Raider and Captain Marvel) and Graham Wagner (a co-executive producer of HBO's Silicon Valley), Variety has confirmed.

Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan, who first brought the project to Amazon in the summer of 2020 alongside his wife and creative collaborator, Lisa Joy, is locked in to direct the first episode. Nolan, Joy, and Athena Wickham will serve as executive producers under their Kilter Films banner, which currently enjoys an overall production deal with Amazon. Todd Howard and James Altman are executive producers for Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks, respectively.

Fallout is one of the greatest game series of all time,” Joy and Nolan said in a joint statement when the show was first announced to be in development nearly two years ago. “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.”

Fallout is an iconic global franchise, with legions of fans worldwide and a rich, deeply compelling storyline that powers it. And Jonah and Lisa are the perfect storytellers to bring this series to life,” added Albert Cheng, COO and co-head of television at Amazon Studios. "We’re thrilled to join with Bethesda to bring Fallout to television."

The Fallout games (of which there are now six) take place in an alternate future where the Cold War and Atomic Age cultures of the 1950s and '60s stuck around well after the turn of the millennium. Mid-century fears of mutually assured destruction come true when the entire planet is decimated by all-out nuclear war, which forces humanity into radiation-proof vaults located deep underground.

The people and animals not fortunate enough to retreat into these lead-lined shelters were mutated into horrific monsters by the lingering radiation. Players assume the role of a Vault denizen, braving the dangers of the outside world by killing mutants, collecting valuables (such as bottle caps, which serve as the new currency in this apocalypse), and fulfilling various missions and side quests. Information and items are stored by the Pip Boy, a watch-like device created by the Vault-Tec Corporation, whose smiling mascot is a nod to the ridiculous safety advice born out of the heightened nuclear tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.

According to Howard, it took about a decade to bring Fallout to the world of television. "We looked at many ways to bring Fallout to the screen,” he also said in 2020. "But it was clear from the moment I first spoke with Jonah and Lisa a few years ago, that they and the team at Kilter were the ones to do it right. We’re enormous fans of their work and couldn’t be more excited to work with them and Amazon Studios."

There is no word on when filming might begin, but getting a creative team lined up is a big first step toward finally seeing this franchise make the jump to live action.