It is been reported that Cate Blanchett is in talks to star in the live-action film adaptation of the video game ‘Borderlands’. She is expected to play Lilith, a Siren from the planet Dionysus. While Lilith is a major character in multiple ‘Borderlands’ games, she is usually an NPC, although she was playable in the first.
The film adaptation will be delivered by Lionsgate, with horror-meister Eli Roth directing. Craig Mazin, who won an Emmy for writing the HBO miniseries ‘Chernobyl’, is penning the screenplay. An adaptation of ‘Borderlands’ has been in the works since 2016, but it sounds as though it’s finally starting to move forward.
The game is a first-person shooter in an immersive world. Players can play the main missions, accept side missions, or explore the world of Pandora (not the one from ‘Avatar’). There are four games in the primary series, and they have sold over 45 million units worldwide. The first ‘Borderlands’ was released in 2009. The most recent, ‘Borderlands 3’, was released last September.
The film adaptation will be produced by Avi and Ari Arad via Arad Prods and Erik Feig via Picturestart. Randy Pitchford, who founded Gearbox Software in 1999, and serves as the company’s president and CEO, will serve as an executive producer on the movie, as will chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick.
Blanchett is a two-time Academy Award winner, having won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for 2014’s ‘Blue Jasmine’ and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for 2004’s ‘The Aviator’. She can currently be seen starring on the FX miniseries ‘Mrs. America’. She also starred in the Australian miniseries ‘Stateless’ which will be released internationally on Netflix. Among genre fans, she is probably best known for portraying Galadriel in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ movies, and Hela in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’. Among her other credits are ‘Elizabeth’, ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Carol’, and ‘Ocean’s Eight’.
Blanchett previously worked with Roth on the family movie ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’. That film was a huge departure for Roth, and ‘Borderlands’ could also go a long way toward distancing him from his past of specializing in particularly gory horror fare like ‘Hostel’ and ‘The Green Inferno’.
Are you a fan of ‘Borderlands’? Are you excited about a film adaptation?
Source: Variety
