Popverse's top stories of the day

• Every new movie and TV series coming to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu in July 2024
• DC's Kingdom Come is getting the documentary movie treatment, with a big announcement coming in July 2024
• Marvel Studios unveils new Fantastic 4 artwork for San Diego Comic-Con

As the saying goes, war never changes and neither does fan behavior. When Amazon snuck an infomercial into their Fallout series, it included a phone number to call to secure a place in one of Vault-Tec’s shiny new vaults. Somewhat predictably, fans started ringing the line which revealed a somewhat gruesome and foreboding message for them.

In episode six of Fallout, Walton Goggins’ Howard Cooper appears in the in-universe advertisement, with the phone number 213-25-VAULT (213-25-2858) appearing on the screen. Many fans, unable to resist dialing a random phone number, rang it only to be greeted with bloodcurdling screams of torture for several seconds before the line disconnected. Ominous, but not very helpful.

Where things get interesting is if you text the number instead. Instead of screams, you get a message from Vault-Tec saying “Thank you for texting Vault-Tec. The next available appointment is 33 weeks from now, please stand by!” 33 is a very specific number, which got fans speculating almost immediately – what is happening in 33 weeks?

33 weeks after the show’s launch will be November 28, 2024, though it depends on which of the multiple release dates we had they go off of. Fans have noted that this is Thanksgiving in the US, a prime time for shopping and leading directly into the busy Holiday shopping season. Some people think that we’ll be getting an announcement about the long-awaited (and heavily delayed) Fallout 5 game at this time, though that feels unlikely considering that Bethesda probably won’t be putting that game out until closer to 2030 at this point.

Other fans suspect that there will be an announcement about the second season of the Fallout TV show around this time – either confirmation that it is happening or a release date. This feels more likely, though scheduling these announcements that far in advance is pretty unusual for streaming services.

The most likely – but least fun – possibility is that the “33 weeks” in question refers to Vault 33, which is where all the action starts in the series and all of this is just a clever marketing ploy to get fans to opt into text messaging. Again, not very fun but oddly in keeping with the commentary on capitalism that Fallout has been built on.

Want to know what's coming up next in pop culture? Check out our guides to upcoming movies, upcoming TV shows, upcoming comics, and upcoming comic conventions. If you're looking for specific franchises or genres, we have all the upcoming MCU, upcoming Star Wars, upcoming Star Trek, and upcoming DC movies & TV for you. If you're a fan of superheroes and not specific to just Marvel or DC, we have overall guides to all the upcoming superhero movies and upcoming superhero TV shows (and new seasons) as well.