Eli Roth Says He Wanted His BORDERLANDS Movie "To Keep the Spirit of the Games" and Says "It's Bananas"

Director Eli Roth recently opened up about his upcoming film adaptation of Borderlands and teases what we can expect from it. One of the things that he makes a point of saying is that it will retain the “spirit” of the original games.

While talking to ComingSoon, Roth was asked about the type of humor we’d see in the movie and if it would be as reference-heavy as the original games. So he talked about that and how the creator of the game, Randy Pitchford, was there to entertain his ideas:

“It’s bananas. I really wanted to keep the spirit of the movie in the spirit of the games. Randy Pitchford, the creator, was there with me every step of the way. If I had my own idea for a joke that’s not part of Borderlands in the canon, he’s like, ‘Oh, that’s great. Claptrap would absolutely do this.’ All the character stuff that I wanted them to do, I’m like, ‘Okay, would Lilith do something like this?’ Or, ‘Is this a Tiny Tina move?’ He’s like, ‘That is so fantastic. We should do that in the game. That’s really, really terrific.’ So yeah, the film is fun. It is wild. It was a massive, massive undertaking — especially in Covid. People are going to have to wait a little longer for that one, but I’m really, really thrilled with it.”

I hope this movie actually turns out to be a great one! We’ll see how that turns out, though. The movie had gone through two weeks of reshoots that weren’t directed by Roth. The studio ended up bringing in Deadpool director Tim Miller to replace Roth for the reshoots because Roth was starting work on his Thanksgiving horror movie.

The story for Borderlands follows Lilith, an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past. She reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora and forms an unexpected alliance to find the missing daughter of Atlas. The film stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Kevin Hart as Roland, Jack Black's character Clatrap, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, and Florian Munteanu as Krieg. Check out some teaser photos of them here. They are joined by Gina Gershon as Moxxi, Edgar Ramirez, Janina Gavankar, Cheyenne Jackson, Charles Babalola, Benjamin Byron Davis, Steven Boyer, Ryann Redmond, and Haley Bennett.

Here’s the synopsis that was released for the film:

Lilith (Blanchett), 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."

Avi and Ari Arad are producing through Arad Prods. Watch our reaction video for the footage we saw of the movie here.