Jonathan Nolan isn’t aware of any video game curse. At least, he’s not familiar with the term, which describes the series of failed attempts to turn beloved video games into Hollywood blockbusters.

“I didn't know there was a curse,” Nolan tells Inverse with a laugh. “Hopefully we'll duck it.”

But maybe that’s the secret to pulling off a great video game adaptation: ignore any external pressures one might get from fans, studios, or mythical “curses.” Nolan, who created Amazon’s Fallout series with his wife and Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy, simply fell in love with the games after playing Fallout 3 for the first time.

“I'd never experienced anything quite like the tone of these games,” Nolan says. “They're so dark, violent, but also funny, almost goofy in places. Because each of the games features different characters and different moments from this larger universe, for us, it felt like kind of the greatest of all possible worlds.”

And what Nolan saw in that wild, retrofuturistic universe was the potential for a franchise where he could build his own story — one that might become even bigger than Westworld if the showrunner and his collaborators get their way.

There’s far less to “disrupt” in the grocery shopping experience than tech companies originally assumed. Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 seemed like a warning.

Amazon revolutionized online shopping and with Whole Foods, one of the most well-regarded chains in the U.S., it was going to reimagine shopping at supermarkets using technology — a camera-tracking wizardry system called Just Walk Out — that would let shoppers walk into a store and then walk out with products, all without having to pay at a cashier.

Just Walk Out was supposed to make trips to the supermarket faster and, without needing to engage with a cashier or self-checkout kiosk, a potentially more pleasant shopping experience. The reality, however, has been full of far more fits than Amazon, and really anyone else, expected.