Jonathan Nolan addresses how HBO’s The Last of Us helped get a Fallout series made at Prime Video.

Prime Video’s Fallout is the latest, much-anticipated post-apocalyptic video game TV adaptation. However, until very recently, the thought of adapting a popular first-person video game was so daunting, few would dare attempt it.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Nolan discussed the development of Fallout; its challenges and influences. This is not, however, his first science fiction rodeo. Nolan, who happens to be the brother of Inception and Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan, was previously a co-showrunner on Westworld. The series was groundbreaking for sci-fi and for television at large, but was abruptly canceled after its fourth season. He was also behind the one-season Amazon sci-fi series The Peripheral.

With his extensive sci-fi television experience, Nolan, along with Lisa Joy, created Fallout for Prime Video. The series will follow Lucy MacLean, portrayed by Ella Purnell, a young vault dweller as she explores the unforgiving wasteland. Purnell has previously starred in films like Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016), and series like Showtime’s Yellowjackets (2021-23). She also voiced Jinx in the League of Legends-based Netflix show Arcane, as well as Gwyn in Star Trek: Prodigy.

Fallout Credits The Last of Us for Getting an Easier Green Light

However, Fallout has one series in particular to thank for its soon-to-be release, and that’s HBO’s The Last of Us. Starring Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, the HBO series was adapted from another highly successful post-apocalyptic video game franchise. When asked whether he was disappointed that The Last of Us beat him to it, so to speak, Nolan had an interesting response.

“I was delighted. To your point, when Todd [Howard, game developer] and I first sat down for lunch, the bar was not only not high, it was non-existent — especially in the TV space,” he explained. “You would have people adapting a first-person game and [a studio would be like,] ‘So the show is going to have a first-person point of view.’ No, that’s a grammatical tick of the game, that’s not how you adapt it. It’s always nice to be the first one. But when somebody makes something as good as The Last of Us, it makes it easier, because suddenly everyone understands what’s possible.”

The Nolan-produced TV series will try to remain as faithful as they can to the games on which it is based. The Fallout franchise has long been known, not just for its exciting gameplay, but for its complex and well-carved out characters and storylines. “We knew that the tone of the show would have to be just like the game — this hybrid of dark, mythic and violent but also funny, satirical and almost goofy in places,” said Nolan.

The writing team and Nolan, himself, drew a lot of inspiration from Westerns for the aesthetics of the series. “We talked a lot about [the Clint Eastwood classic] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — one of our characters is a plucky optimistic vault-dweller, who strives into the world to win the hearts and minds of whoever is alive,” the producer explained. He then contrasts the character of Lucy with Walton Goggins’ The Ghoul – no-nonsense, ruthless, and heartless. Nolan also mentioned Aaron Moten’s character, Maximus, who is somewhere in between the two. “I think Geneva and Graham [the show’s writers] nailed the feeling of an RPG without the viewer making those choices; the characters are making those choices.”

Fallout is set to premiere on Prime Video on April 12th.