Per Variety, Cate Blanchett has signed on to star as Lilith in Lionsgate’s adaptation of popular video game, Borderlands. Eli Roth is directing with Avi and Ari Arad producing. Craig Mazin, who won an Emmy for writing Chernobyl, has written the latest draft of the screenplay.
Borderlands was originally released in 2009. It’s a role-playing first-person shooter game created and developed by Gearbox Software, and set on the frontier of a sci-fi universe – the planet of Pandora – which has been abandoned by a mega-corporation prior to the game’s events. The series has sold more than 57 million units worldwide. Borderlands 3 was released last September.
Lilith is one of the main protagonists in the franchise, and one of the playable characters in the first game. She is one of only six women in the galaxy that belong to the powerful “siren” class, wielding superhuman powers.
We all know the complicated history behind video game-to-film adaptations. The most successful ones have usually been smaller games or franchises like Resident Evil that quickly shifted away from what the games actually were.
Historically, adapting popular, action-based games like Borderlands and expecting them to be similarly successful on the big screen has been a mistake. Lionsgate will be hoping this is the exception.
The good thing is that Blanchett elevates anything and will adapt to any world with ease. Plus, Roth is the kind of director who will bring legitimate passion to the project, so Borderlands fans should be feeling pretty confident that the essence of the game will be up there on screen.
Lionsgate have been wheeling and dealing impressively lately. They secured a deal for another Hunger Games movie (and presumably, another franchise) with an adaptation of Suzanne Collins‘ The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which has series veteran Francis Lawrence returning to direct.
They also just brought on American Hustle writer Eric Warren Singer to pen the next instalment of their Now You See Me franchise, which is expected to introduce some new stars to the series’ world of magic-based heists.
Blanchett can currently be seen in the FX miniseries Mrs. America. On the big screen, she’ll next be seen in Guillermo Del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley, which she was filming alongside Bradley Cooper until the COVID-19 pandemic halted production.
#Peace.Love.Borderlands
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