One of these days I’m going to have to take notes on pretty much every videogame property that is getting a TV series because I forgot that Fallout was one of them. Of course, most feel like prematurely announced corporate wishes more than real projects but a recent casting announcement confirms that the iconic post-nuclear apocalypse series is making progress.
Noted character actor Walton Goggins has signed on to play a leading role. Entertainment news site Deadline broke the story, reporting that he would be playing “Ghoul,” but most every videogames savvy reader knows that probably means a ghoul, the ‘species’ of long-lived mutants who have been transformed by prolonged radiation exposure.
Goggins is a pretty cool get, as he’s received much acclaim from TV and film pundits for his career. He was a series mainstay on shows like The Shield, Justified and Sons of Anarchy and made appearances in the Tarantino films The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained. You might remember him from Ant-Man and The Wasp as Sonny Burch, a black market dealer in super-tech. Fallout won’t be Goggins’ first ride into video game movie land: he played Mathias Vogel in 2018’s Tomb Raider opposite Alicia Vikander and Daniel Wu.
His reputation for creating characters with some combination of folksy presence and indeterminate morality make him a perfect choice for the series. Whether he ends up playing an original character or one of the other name ghouls from the franchise like friendly wanderer Harold or ill-tempered city lord Set, Goggins will probably end up being a highlight.
The Fallout TV series is being developed for Amazon Prime Video and will be based on the iconic series of post-apocalyptic role-playing games. The series began on PC with RPGs by legendary devs Black Isle Studios before ultimately continuing as a series of sci-fi horror action survival games on consoles and PC by Bethesda Game Studios.
Westworld co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are developing the show through their production company Kilter Films and in collaboration with Bethesda Softworks and Bethesda Game Studios. Todd Howard and James Altman are serving as executive producers. Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner will serve as showrunners.