Fallout Director Reveals How The Last of Us Paved Way for the Prime Video Series Debut

Fallout series director and co-creator Jonathan Nolan recently acknowledged the impact of The Last of Us on Fallout’s development, stating that its success helped dispel doubts about the viability of adapting first-person games for television.

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan was asked how The Last of Us series changed people’s perception towards video game adaptations, by raising the bar significantly. Read his full response below:

“When Todd [Howard, Fallout’s developer] and I first sat down for lunch, the bar was not only not high, it was nonexistent — especially in the TV space. 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.
”

Prime Video’s latest venture is promising to bring the beloved post-apocalyptic video game to life in a series that has already garnered much anticipation. Fallout presented a unique set of challenges, primarily due to its first-person gameplay, which does not readily lend itself to a traditional television format.

Watch Fallout Official Trailer below:

Nolan, having co-run the critically acclaimed series Westworld and created The Peripheral, is no stranger to the challenges of bringing complex sci-fi worlds to the small screen. The director took on the challenge to transform a video game genre that was once deemed untouchable into small screen adaptation.

Fallout Series Takes From Western Influences for Its Aesthetics

The path to bringing Fallout to television was made smoother by the success of another video game adaptation, HBO’s The Last of Us. Starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us set a high standard for what video game adaptations could achieve on TV, proving that such projects could be both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

The Fallout series aims to remain faithful to its source material, capturing the essence of the game’s complex characters and storylines. Nolan and his team have drawn inspiration from classic Westerns, particularly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, to shape the aesthetic and tone of the series.

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The show will feature a diverse cast of characters, from the optimistic Lucy to the ruthless Ghoul, played by Walton Goggins, and the enigmatic Maximus, portrayed by Aaron Moten. Nolan said,

“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. 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.”