The Director Of The British Cult Classic Threads Has One Big Concern About Its Remake
Is depicting hope dangerous?
Apocalyptic media is often defined by the apocalypse itself. Sometimes, it’s a little silly but still terrifying, like the cordyceps infection in The Last of Us. Other times, it’s serious but results in awesome action like in Mad Max. But one apocalypse scenario we often don’t see is a truly realistic one: one that addresses the harsh reality of how this world really could end. In 1984, British audiences were shown this very thing on television, and it’s still considered a terrifying film that showed the true power of nuclear fallout.
Now, this movie is set to be adapted into a television series, but the original filmmaker has one big concern with this new version’s ultimate direction.
Threads shows decades of fallout after a nuclear bomb is dropped near Sheffield.
Threads, directed by Mick Jackson, follows two families in Sheffield as they try to survive a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. It pulls no punches as its characters fall one by one, before ultimately only focusing on pregnant Ruth (Karen Meagher) as she tries to survive and carve out a life for her and her child. Meticulously researched, it presents a bleak picture of what civilization would look like after nuclear winter, including the ozone layer weakening, resulting in blindness and skin cancer, and the degradation of the English language itself.
In April 2025, Adolescence’s Warp Films announced that they would adapt Threads for a new generation, this time as a television series as opposed to a TV movie. As the project is still in development, details were sparse, but The Hollywood Reporter released statements from a number of producers at the company, including Warp’s CCO Emily Feller, who said, “This adaptation will allow us to uncover fresh interpretations in light of today’s world. We imagine highlighting how resilience and connection can offer hope even in the most challenging of times.”
In a recent interview with Empire, Threads’ original director Mick Jackson pointed out this statement in particular as problematic. “That one phrase worried me. Resilience of the human spirit is a concept from drama, a piece of entertainment, but hope is not part of nuclear war,” he said. “Hope that it all turns out great in the end and that everybody’s resilient? It’s not true.”
Threads showed the harsh and, yes, hopeless reality of a nuclear apocalypse.
The hopelessness is just what makes Threads so affecting. It’s often compared to American TV movie The Day After, but while that showed how the can-do American spirit can endure even in the immediate wake of fallout, Threads is more focused on how the events of one day can effectively be the end of humanity as we know. When Ruth ultimately passes away in Threads, her daughter Jane doesn’t even mourn her, and when Jane ultimately becomes pregnant, the infant comes out so malformed that it’s never even shown on camera.
As goofy as the nuclear apocalypse seems in works like Fallout, the reality is so harsh that we don’t even like to think about it. But that’s why post-apocalyptic media exists in the first place: to get us to confront the possibility, however grim, of what could possibly happen. Despite misgivings, Jackson (ironically) still has hope in this new adaptation. “Warp are a tremendously gifted team of people,” he said. “What they’ve done with Adolescence is one of the greatest things ever done on television.”
