According to Gearbox founder and CEO Randy Pitchford, director Eli Roth‘s Borderlands movie is the first entry in the “Borderlands Cinematic Universe.” Yep, they are planning some big things with this movie franchise!
During an interview with IGN, Pitchford said, “One of the cool things about the movie is we’ve created a cinematic universe that lives side by side with the video game universe. And of course, the characters are there and authentic in the themes and even some of the storylines. But they’re independent storylines.”
Pitchford went on to explain: “So this isn’t Borderlands 1. This isn’t Borderlands 2. The Borderlands movie is the first of the Borderlands Cinematic Universe. And you’ll see some characters from some of the different parts of what you might know from the video games. But it also gives us an opportunity to get deeper and expand a little bit.”
This is something that I can totally get behind! There’s so much you can explore in the Borderlands universe, so if this movie actually ends up being great and entertaining, and audiences show up to watch it in theaters, we could be seeing a lot more of these films get made.
On the flip side of things, if the movie underperforms, then this plan of building a Borderlands Cinematic Universe isn’t going to go anywhere. I hope things work out, though! This franchise could be a blast!
Would you want to see Lionsgate get the opportunity to build out a Borderlands Cinematic Universe?
In the film, “Lilith, an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful S.O.B., Atlas (Ramirez). Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Black), a persistently wiseass robot. 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.”
The movie stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Kevin Hart as Roland, Jack Black’s character Claptrap, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, and Florian Munteanu as Krieg. The movie also stars Haley Bennett, Janina Gavankar, Gina Gershon, Cheyenne Jackson, Charles Babalola, Benjamin Byron Davis, Steven Boyer, Ryann Redmond, and Bobby Lee.
Borderlands is being produced by Arad Productions’ Avi Arad and Ari Arad, along with Picturestart’s Erik Feig. It will be executive produced by Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford and CEO of Take-Two Interactive Strauss Zelnick. Lionsgate’s James Myers and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing the project along with Arad’s Emmy Yu and Picturestart’s Lucy Kitada and Royce Reeves-Darby.
Borderlands will be released in theaters on August 9, 2024.
