Anna Daniels
Borderlands, the video game series that kicked-off in 2009, is headed to the big screen. Eli Roth is set to helm the Borderlands movie for Lionsgate, with a script by Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin. The original game followed a group of “Vault Hunters” looking for an alien vault on the planet of Pandora (no, not the one from Avatar).
THR says Cabin Fever director Eli Roth is set to helm a Borderlands movie for Lionsgate. “I’m so excited to dive into the world of Borderlands, and I could not be doing it with a better script, producing team and studio. I have a long, successful history with Lionsgate — I feel like we have grown up together and that everything in my directing career has led to a project of this scale and ambition,” said the filmmaker.
Borderlands the game was released in 2009, and spawned three sequels – Borderlands 2 in 2012, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel in 2014, and Borderlands 3 in 2019. The original game was “set in the distant future, at a time when various mega-corporations seek control of various planets to colonize and mine for their mineral wealth and resources.” When one of those mega-corporations discovers an alien vault on the distant planet Pandora, a team is sent in and ends up having to battle “the local wildlife and bandit population” while “attempting to stop the head of a private corporation army from reaching the vault first.”
“With Eli’s vision and Craig’s screenplay, we believe we have cracked the code on bringing the anarchic world of Borderlands to the big screen in a big way that will be a fresh, compelling and cinematic event for moviegoers and fans of the game,” said Nathan Kahane, president of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group.
A Borderlands movie has been in various stages of development over the years. Back in 2015, The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannel was in talks to direct when Lionsgate first announced the project. Aaron Berg was also drafted to write a script at one point, but it’s Craig Mazin’s script that’s being used for Roth’s film. Having not played any version of Borderlands, I can’t really comment on how a film version might turn out. Mazin’s work on Chernobyl is fantastic, but he’s also responsible for various Scary Movie sequels and The Huntsman: Winter’s War, so there’s that. And while Roth has occasionally delivered the goods, he’s had far more misses than hits. But perhaps this is just the right material for him.
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