Summary
TheBorderlandsvideo game franchise has been around for 15 years – and it’s been a beloved staple of pop culture for just as long – so why did it take so long to get a movie adaptation off the ground? Eli Roth’s big-budget film version ofBorderlandsis set to arrive in theaters on June 26, 2025. It has a star-studded ensemble cast including some of the biggest names in Hollywood, from Cate Blanchett as Lilith to Kevin Hart as Roland to Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Patricia Tannis to Jack Black as the voice of Claptrap.
The movie adaptation sees gunslinging Lilith returning to her home planet of Pandora,Escape from New York-style, to rescue the missing daughter of the most powerful man in the universe: Atlas, played by Edgar Ramírez. Lilith assembles a crack team of mercenaries, androids, and demolitionists for what promises to beGuardians of the Galaxyset in the dystopian post-apocalyptic wastelands ofMad Max. ABorderlandsmovie has been in the works for almost a decade now;it took years for the project to come together and another few years to get it made. So, why did it take so long?
A Borderlands Movie Has Been In Development Since 2015
Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford started trying to get a film adaptation off the ground two years after the first game was released
The firstBorderlandsgame was released in 2009. According to a recentBorderlandspiece byEntertainment Weekly, two years after the game hit shelves, Randy Pitchford – the CEO of Gearbox, the creators ofBorderlands– started having discussions with Hollywood players about a possible film adaptation. He first spoke to Avi and Ari Arad, the producers who kickstarted theX-Menfranchise in 2000.Pitchford felt that the Arads’ work showed that they “sincerely care about the source material” they’re adapting, which gave him faith that they could do the gonzo world ofBorderlandsjustice on the big screen.
In April 2016, Aaron Berg – the writer of the as-yet-unproducedSection 6andG.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant– was hired to pen an R-rated take on aBorderlandsmovie. In theEWpiece, Pitchford admits that neither he nor any of the producers and studio executives involved thought that an R rating was the right way to go, butthey spent the development process “flirting with stuff.”By June 2018, Oren Uziel had been tapped to take over scripting duties from Berg. Uziel is best known for his work on22 Jump Street,The Cloverfield Paradox, andThe Lost City.
In February 2020, theBorderlandsmovie finally found its director in Eli Roth. When Roth was attached to directBorderlands, the screenplay was to be written by Craig Mazin. Mazin’s name has been removed from the final film, but he ended up putting his stamp on the video game adaptation world in an even bigger way as the co-creator and co-showrunner of HBO’sThe Last of Us(where he’s gotten to enjoy a lot more creative freedom than is typically afforded to a screenwriter-for-hire on a big-budget tentpole movie).
When Roth joinedBorderlands, Erik Feig was also attached to the project as a producer through his production label Picturestart. Feig used to be the president of production at Lionsgate, the studio behindBorderlands, and since leaving to start his own production company, he’s maintained a good relationship with them. Feig has produced such hit films asStep Up,Theater Camp, andI Know What You Did Last Summer. Roth said thatPitchford and the producers spent seven years iterating theBorderlandsmoviebefore settling on the right storyline, the right characters, and the right director.
And it wasn’t just the development process for theBorderlandsmovie that took a painfully long time; it’s also been years since the movie first started filming.The initial production started on August 15, 2025, and wrapped on June 22. So, the film is arriving in theaters more than three years after it originally wrapped filming.
Who Was Supposed To Direct The Borderlands Movie Before Eli Roth Took Over
Leigh Whannell was the first director recruited for a Borderlands movie
A movie adaptation of theBorderlandsfranchise unofficially went into development in May 2015 whenLionsgate began negotiations with Leigh Whannell to write and direct the project. Whannell is best known for co-writing and starring in the firstSawmovie and has since directed hit movies likeUpgradeandThe Invisible Man. Based on the visceral, high-octane sci-fi action ofUpgrade, it would’ve been interesting to see his take on theBorderlandsmaterial. However, when theBorderlandsmovie was officially announced in August 2015, Whannell’s name was nowhere to be seen.
Even Roth wasn’t the last director to be hired forBorderlands. In January 2023, it was announced thatBorderlandsneeded two weeks of reshoots. But since Roth was already working on his festive slasherThanksgivingby that point, he wasn’t available to direct the reshoots. So,Deadpooldirector Tim Miller was brought in to helm the reshoots. Roth gave Miller his blessing and Zak Olkewicz, the writer ofBullet TrainandThe Last Voyage of the Demeter, penned additional script pages for the reshoots.
How The Pandemic Affected The Borderlands Movie
Borderlands was cast during lockdown and went into production as soon as vaccinations were available
Casting for theBorderlandsmoviebegan with Blanchett’s hiring in May 2020;Blanchett toldEWthat she signed on to play Lilith due to “lockdown madness.”Pre-production continued for almost a year as the last roles were cast in April 2021, when everyone was eager to re-enter the real world and get back to work.Borderlandswent into production as soon as COVID vaccinations became available to the public. Along withIndiana Jones and the Dial of DestinyandAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,Borderlandswas one of the first movies to get cameras rolling after the vaccine was created.
Why The Borderlands Movie Needed Reshoots
It’s pretty standard for a big-budget studio movie to need reshoots
It’s pretty standard for a big-budget studio movie to go into reshoots. Once the dailies get into the editing room and the editor starts piecing the film together, the filmmakers might decide they need an extra angle to help a scene flow better, or they need to tweak a scene to be more tonally consistent with the rest of the movie. WhenDeadlinereported news of theBorderlandsreshoots and speculation ran rampant that Roth had been fired and replaced by Miller, it clarified that it was “an amicable handing of the baton” from Roth to Miller.
The fact thatBorderlandsonly needed two weeks of reshoots is a good sign, because it means they’re only making minor changes to what was already shot. If a movie goes into months of reshoots, it usually means that something really isn’t working and the whole thing needs a creative overhaul. Reports of the drama behind the scenes ofBorderlandshave been greatly exaggerated; it was actually a pretty typical Hollywood production.
Borderlands
Cast
Based on the video game franchise, Borderlands is a sci-fi action-comedy film that follows Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a treasure hunter who returns to her home planet, Pandora, to find a tycoon’s missing daughter. Together with a group of unlikely allies, such as a soldier, a teenaged demolitions expert, a wise-cracking robot, and an eccentric scientist, the group will work together to save the girl - all while learning to deal with each other’s unyielding quirks.
