The bizarre Borderlands film, currently in development, is starting to take shape over at Lionsgate! According to a news report today, the first two actors in the film have been cast already.
As was reported by Variety:
“Kevin Hart is joining Cate Blanchett in the cast of “Borderlands,” a movie adaptation of the popular video game. Hart will play Roland, a skilled ex-soldier-turned-mercenary, in the Lionsgate film.”
Blanchett is currently set to play the character of Lilith.
Borderlands was a 2009 RPG/First Person Shooter for the Xbox 360/PS3 that has become an immensely popular franchise with it’s 2012 and 2019 sequels becoming some of the most popular games of their respective generations.
This franchise is known for it’s colorful comic book inspired visual designs and comedic stories that follow groups of “Vault Hunters” descending to an alien world called Pandora in search of legendary treasures.
Given the track record for big budget video game adaptations like Monster Hunter, Assassins Creed, Tomb Raider, Rampage, Warcraft, Need for Speed, Prince of Persia, Max Payne, Angry Birds, Street Fighter, Hitman, Wing Commander, Double Dragon, House of the Dead, Far Cry, Silent Hill Revelations, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Super Mario Brothers, Pixels and Doom Annihilation (to name a few), there’s good reason to be skeptical going into this film.
That said, there are some good signs that the right people are involved with this project. When the film was announced in February, we learned about some of the people working on the project.
We previously heard that Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel, Green Inferno, Death Wish) had been picked up as the film’s director. We also know that the film’s first draft was written by screenwriter Craig Mazin. Mazin is fresh off the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries Chernobyl and is currently slated to produce the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us.
While it is too early to tell what the final project could turn out to look like, that is a strange pairing for talent. There is a mild possibility that the film will turn out to be an authentically well made adaptation!
The film is currently in preproduction and has no scheduled release date.
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