2 years after shooting wrapped, Eli Roth's Borderlands movie is still over a year away
The film adaptation of Gearbox's co-op shooter series will be in theaters next summer.
The Borderlands movie finished shooting in 2021, and given that it's 2023 and we still haven't seen a trailer for it, I'm inclined to think that post-production has not gone entirely as planned. The movie does exist though: Borderlands will be in theaters on August 9, 2024, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford announced today.
The Borderlands movie is co-written and directed by noted horror filmmaker Eli Roth, best known for the Hostel movies, and stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Edgar Ramirez as Atlas, Kevin Hart as Roland, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, and Jack Black as the horrible robot man, Claptrap.
We recently pointed out that Roth's original co-writer on the film, HBO's The Last of Us writer Craig Mazin, has opted to be credited under a pseudonym. It's possible that the movie has changed quite a bit since the 2021 wrap party: It underwent reshoots this year under the direction of Deadpool director Tim Miller while Roth was busy working on another film.
We've so far seen very little of the production outside of a silhouetted photo of Blanchett as Lilith. (Strange to think that photo was taken not long before filming for Tár began.)
We also got a plot synopsis in 2021, according to which Lilith "reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe's most powerful SOB, Atlas." To that end, she allies with Roland, Tiny Tina and sidekick Kreig (Florian Munteanu), Claptrap, and scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis).
"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," reads the synopsis. "The fate of the universe could be in their hands—but they'll be fighting for something more: each other."
Sounds suspiciously wholesome.
I'm no big film buff, but there being three years between the end of shooting and the movie's premiere doesn't sound like a good sign, and neither does one of the writers taking his name out of the credits, but I'm open to the possibility that the Borderlands movie will surprise us. Maybe Jack Black will capture the hearts of all the world's filmgoers with his Claptrap, and it'll turn out to be the best film of 2024. Or at least the best in its category, which I'm guessing is 'films that include lots of shouting. '