- Borderlands, the live action film, has finally received a release date in August 2024 after years of production hell.
- Filming wrapped two years ago on Borderlands, which stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Kevin Hart as Roland and Jack Black as Clap Trap the robot.
- Borderlands hits a market ready and willing to accept videogame spinoff media, especially if it honours the source material.
From the director that brought you The House with the Clock in its Walls, Eli Roth, comes the officially described “science fiction action comedy” film Borderlands, based on Gearbox Software’s popular looter shooter series.
Stuck in production hell for the better part of two years, the film has finally received a release date according to the official Borderlands Twitter account.
Borderlands starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu and Jamie Lee Curtis hits theatres worldwide on 9th of August 2024.
Filming on the movie wrapped two years ago, and there were also some reshoots involved which is never a good sign. The COVID-19 pandemic caused serious disruptions to production, but now it seems the film is in a good enough state for a full launch.
However, there are some talented people involved in the production, including two-time Academy Award winner Blanchett who stars as blue-haired, tattooed siren Lillith – one of the original four playable characters in the first Borderlands game.
The Borderlands film’s plot looks to mix and match narrative beats from all the games into one singular story, and the characters involved reflect this. Kevin Hart will play soldier Roland and Ariana Greenblatt will take up the rabbit-eared hat of Tiny Tina. Hollywood veteran Jamie Lee Curtis will don the goggles of Dr Tannis, who helped the player character find the vaunted Vault in the games.
As for series mascot Clap Trap, the annoying yellow robot who is inescapable, Jack Black has drawn the honours for a voicing role. Borderlands will be Black’s second game-based film in just as many years, following the success of his turn as Bowser in the Super Mario Bros. film.
According to the official website of the film, hosted by production firm Lionsgate, the plot will see Lilith, Siren and infamous outlaw returns to her home planet of Pandora – which is far less green than the Pandora we have seen in James Cameron’s Avatar films – in order to find the missing daughter of Atlas, who is described as “the universe’s most powerful SOB.”
“Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland, a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina, a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg, Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis, the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap, a persistently wiseass robot,” Lionsgate writes.
“These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.”
Borderlands will launch in a market ready and willing to embrace films and series based on videogames. The enormous commercial success of The Last of Us has been a boon for HBO. The series starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsay has received 24 nominations at this year’s Primetime Emmy awards.
Earlier this year, Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. movie starring Chris Pratt and Anya Taylor-Joy made $377 million in just six days after release, the biggest videogame film opening ever.
The ground is fallow for Borderlands, especially if it sticks to the source material and does something fun and new. The likelihood of that is still questionable, however, since there have been more videogame film flops than wins. Hopefully it will at least be something decent, so that the series’ millions upon millions of fans can go home happy.
[Image – Steam]
