Fallout TV show: Release date, trailer, news for Prime Video series

After years of subpar live-action adaptations of video games – bar examples such as The Last of Us, which received almost universal acclaim – fans have naturally been sceptical about whether a Fallout TV show can live up to the beloved game.

But Fallout has cracked the code in making adaptations work, cast member Purnell believes.

Talking to RadioTimes.com and other press, she said recently: "I think one of the big challenges about adapting a video game is you're changing the entire format. You know, it's not as easy as adapting a book or creating a biopic about someone's life."

She continued: "You're going from a first-player experience, where you are playing the game and you're essentially creating a story within that world, you're taking away the major element that people play the games for, which is the ability to choose.

"I think Geneva [Robertson-Dworet] and Graham [Wagner, show creators] did a fantastic job in this, translating that essence, that theme, by giving us these three archetypal main characters of The Ghoul, Lucy and Maximus."

The show's creator Jonathan Nolan (also the co-creator of Westworld and the brother of film director Christopher) also previously described the show as "like Fallout 5", making the point that it's a continuation of the story rather than adapting what's already out there.

Here's everything you need to know about the release of the Fallout TV series.

Fallout TV show release date

The Fallout TV show will premiere on Prime Video in the early hours of Thursday 11th April 2024 in the UK, at 2am (or 6pm PT on Wednesday 10th April in the US).

The initial release date announcement came as part of a Fallout Day fan celebration in 2023, which happens annually on 23rd October, but that date has been brought forward on numerous occasions.

Created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, the series was developed by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan.

Amazon purchased the rights to create the show in 2020, and it's been a long road since then. Robertson-Dworet and Wagner were hired as showrunners in January 2022, with the series leads being cast in February and March that year.

Filming kicked off in 2022 and wrapped in 2023.

Who stars in Prime Video series Fallout?

The following actors appear in Fallout:

• Ella Purnell as Lucy – An optimistic vault dweller with an all-American can-do spirit. Her peaceful and idealistic nature is tested when people harm her loved ones.
• Aaron Moten as Maximus – A young soldier hides his tragic past as he serves in a militaristic faction called Brotherhood of Steel. He believes in the nobility of the Brotherhood's mission to bring law and order to the Wasteland, and will do anything to further their goals.
• Walton Goggins as The Ghoul – The Ghoul survives the wasteland as a bounty hunter. He is pragmatic, ruthless, and hides a mysterious past.
• Kyle MacLaughlin as Overseer Hank – The overseer of Vault 33 and Lucy’s father. He is eager to change the world for the better.

Also starring are:

• Xelia Mendes-Jones
• Mike Doyle as Mr Spencer
• Moisés Arias as Norm, Lucy's brother
• Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus
• Cherien Dabis as Birdie
• Dale Dickey as Ma June
• Matty Cardarople as Huey
• Sarita Choudhury
• Michael Emerson as Wilzig, an enigmatic wanderer who aids Lucy
• Leslie Uggams
• Chris Parnell
• Frances Turner
• Dave Register as Chet
• Zach Cherry
• Rodrigo Luzzi as Reg
• Annabel O'Hagan as Steph

Despite the series being based on the game series, the lead actors recently revealed that the show's creators didn't make them play the games themselves.

Ella Purnell told ScreenRant: "They told me, us maybe, that we didn't have to play the games, but we could if we wanted to. I did want to play them because I really wanted to get everything I could out of this moment.

"I wanted to obviously do justice to the source material. But I also knew my character was original. I had a bit of experience with that, with Arcane, like you said, knowing how to draw from the source material and how to also allow yourself the creative freedom to do your own thing. But I found it... if not helpful, then very fun."

She recently gave a bit more of an insight into Lucy's character at the Q&A, describing her as a mix between Leslie Knope and Ned Flanders and adding: "She is sheltered – for lack of a better word!

"She is learning about the wasteland, she's the audience's eyes into the wasteland. What I'll say is that choosing to believe in the golden rule, choosing to believe that humans are capable of goodness, that they are inherently good, at a certain point, when you've witnessed enough in the wasteland, it becomes a choice.

"If you continue to believe that that's a choice, and that's not bred from naivety, that's read from bravery, actually, it takes courage to continue to believe that in the face of it less goodness."

Is there a Fallout TV show trailer?

Yes! We have a trailer – check out the action-packed clip below:

Check out the most recently released trailer below:

What is the plot of the Fallout TV series?

An official synopsis for the series says: "Fallout is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have.

"Two hundred years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them."

It was previously confirmed that the show will be set within the same continuity as the games, with game-maker Todd Howard telling Vanity Fair: "We view what’s happening in the show as canon. That’s what’s great, when someone else looks at your work and then translates it in some fashion."

He admits to being envious of some of the TV show’s interpretations and additions: "I sort of looked at it like, 'Ah, why didn’t we do that?'"

Where does the Fallout TV show take place?

The Fallout TV show takes place in Los Angeles, after an apocalyptic disaster wipes the city as we know it.

Hundreds of years later, some denizens live below the surface in vaults, cut off from the rest of humanity, while others take their chances on the surfaces.

As for how the two groups fare when they inevitably come face-to-face, only time will tell.

How many episodes will Fallout consist of?

Fallout will consist of eight episodes.

Details are being kept under wraps, but we do know that Nolan has directed the first three.

What are the Fallout games?

Unless you’ve been living under a radioactive rock, you’ll know Fallout is a darkly comical game series set in a 1950s post-apocalyptic vision of the future.

The player must travel across a barren wasteland (formerly known as the United States of America) alongside other characters who survive by hiding in underground vaults.

This might sound unrelentingly bleak – and certainly, the story does have some tough moments – but what sets Fallout apart is its unique sense of humour that provides sharp social commentary and pays homage to absurd B-movie fantasy.

Producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy said: "Fallout is one of the greatest game series of all time. 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."

Slightly worryingly for gamers, though, the director has said the show wasn't made to "please" fans of the game.

As reported by T3, Nolan said: "I don't think you really can set out to please the fans of anything. Or please anyone other than yourself.

"I think you have to come into this trying to make the show that you want to make and trusting that, as fans of the game [ourselves], we would find the pieces that were essential to us... and try to do the best version."

Fallout will arrive on Prime Video on Thursday 11th April 2024.

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