Created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Fallout is an upcoming post-apocalyptic drama television series based on the role-playing video game franchise created by Interplay Entertainment and now owned by Bethesda Softworks. The series goes on to depict the aftermath of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange in an alternate history of Earth.
It follows three very different survivors in a post-apocalyptic landscape 200 years after the nuclear war. Creator Jonathan Nolan recently compared adapting Fallout to his contribution to The Dark Knight trilogy, alongside Christopher Nolan.
Jonathan Nolan talks about his experience adapting the Fallout game for TV
Westworld fame creator Jonathan Nolan is currently busy promoting his upcoming post-apocalyptic drama, which is an adaptation of a role-playing video game. In his interview with Josh Horowitz, the screenwriter goes into detail about his experience working on the show. He explains,
“It’s a big swing… When you’re looking for adaptations, and about half of my career has been adaptation and half has been original, sure, I like them both. When you’re looking for adaptation, you want something with great substance. You want something that has something essential and something that’s irreplaceable; otherwise, why not just do your own thing?”
Nolan mentioned that individuals also want to do something that has a little bit of freedom in it, noting that some people enjoy the more rigorous translation form of adaptation. The screenwriter continued that, when it comes to him, he is looking for something that has the latitude to do some storytelling or if there is something incomplete from the original medium.
He pointed out that the challenge with Fallout is that every game in the franchise is set in a different city with a different set of characters, and all of them are connected, but they are all different. He goes on to say that there are games that he’s drawn to, such as the open world games and role-playing games, in which part of it is that the one playing them is cultivating their character and can take them in different directions, not just in terms of skill set but also moral complexity.
Jonathan Nolan noted that by working with the showrunners, they were able to create a universe where they already had all of this incredible thought, which he describes as;
“It’s like being a kid in a candy store, and you have all of these amazing things that you get to play with but also get to come and add some of your own ideas and thoughts.”
He noted that it’s quite similar to Batman, as there are so many versions of the character that when an individual sits down to do it, they just end up asking which version of the character to be faithful to.
Jonathan Nolan says he’s hopeful to bring the Westworld story to an end someday
In his interview with The Wrap, while promoting Fallout, the screenwriter mentioned that he and Lisa Joy have not given up on their desire to bring the story of Westworld to an end. He said,
“Our philosophy from the beginning was to make sure each installment and each chapter should be somewhat complete, tell a good story, and then you get a chance to keep going.”
He further mentioned that Lisa and he did have an architecture for the series, and he is big on getting a chance to finish these things. Jonathan Nolan admits that the duo has hopes that somewhere down the line, they’ll get a chance to revisit the story and bring it to an end. He refrained from spoiling the end for the viewers because he did not want them to know what happened in case they got to bring it to an end.
Evan Rachel Wood recently shared with THR that the creators refused to share the end of the story with her after the show got canceled, noting that maybe somewhere in the future they’ll get to bring the story to an end.
Fallout premieres on Prime Video on April 11, 2024.
