Gearbox Software may still be toying around with the idea of making Borderlands 4, but development for the Borderlands movie seems to be going along smoothly as more images have surfaced showing early previews of what this hilarious cast will look like in Eli Roth's video game adaptation. This comes after Dr. Patricia Tannis Jamie Lee Curtis had shared a behind-the-scenes look at Lilith just a couple of days ago.
Recently, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford had come out to clarify that the Borderlands movie is not canon to events depicted in the video game world, with each one existing independently of one another despite working on stories that involve the same subset of characters. Although plans to bring Borderlands to the big screen had been in place as early as 2015, it wasn't until five years later, when the project was quickly shifted into advanced development, that the film put together a stellar cast consisting of leading lady Cate Blanchett as Lilith, plus the likes of Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Édgar Ramirez.
Now that Borderlands has been filming in Hungary for two months, some early work can already be shared with fans, showing just the kind of ragtag group of mercenaries Lilith will be leading to rescue the daughter of the universe's baddest and most powerful SOB, Ramirez's Atlas. The photo set shared on the official Twitter account for the Borderlands movie includes Hart's mercenary Roland, Greenblatt's teenage Tiny Tina, and her psycho bodyguard Krieg. Naturally, Curtis' Dr. Tannis also makes the cut, as well as the film's most awaited character, Claptrap.
Unfortunately, the image-only previews don't deliver one of the movies' most anticipated elements, that being the chance to hear the hilarious Jack Black talk back to the rest of the crew in his Claptrap persona. While it's still incredibly early to call what kind of creative direction the Borderlands movie might be aiming for, the black and white previews do show some of Roth's influences on the film, which stem largely from his ample background in the horror genre directing movies like Cabin Fever, Hostel, and even the Thanksgiving trailer for Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse.
Adapting the wretched world of Pandora to live-action cinema seems like quite the challenge, especially considering the type of raunchy overtones and over the top humor the franchise has become famous for, but that might just be the reason why producers opted to go with Roth to spearhead the film rendition of Craig Mazin's screenplay, which the director co-wrote.
However, until colored fully-featured images become available it'll be impossible to tell how good of a job is being done on translating Borderlands' comic book aesthetic to the real world. This has always been one of the franchise's most distinctive traits since its inception in 2009 and something that is key to getting things right.
Borderlands will be distributed in the United States by Lionsgate.
Source: @BorderlandsFilm|Twitter