Eli Roth is a director best known for his grisly horror films Hostel, Cabin Fever and Thanksgiving, so why has he now turned his hand to adapting a beloved video game franchise?
Borderlands is a $1 billion gaming franchise which has received floods of praise for its simple gameplay style and dark, twisted sense of humour.
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You play as one of a band of looters trying to track down a big payday on the deadly planet Pandora, and have to contend with crazed scavengers, along with the planet’s wildlife - which is also trying to kill you.
Roth is bringing the game to life with Oscar-winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, Barbie star Ariana Greenblatt, Jack Black and Kevin Hart.
While most of us know Roth as someone who takes his greatest enjoyment from devising grisly onscreen deaths for his characters, he says he’s always wanted to make ‘a big, fun science fiction movie’.
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He tells LADbible: “You know me from my horror films, but I love Star Wars. I love Escape from New York. I love totally bonkers movies, whether it's Time Bandits or The Fifth Element.
“I knew the game Borderlands, and the opportunity came along to direct it, and it very much matches with my sense of humor. There's a sense of total insanity.”
As for how he got Blanchett onboard off the back of her Oscar-winning turn as toxic conductor Lydia Tár, he says the movie is more in her wheelhouse than you might expect.
He says: “I thought, ‘What if we did a movie where Kate is a really, really pissed off bounty hunter like Clint Eastwood Man with No Name type, or Snake Plissken in Escape from New York.
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“I called Kate, and I said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ And she said, ‘Well, Escape from New York is my favourite movie.’
“Most people want to see her with a conductor’s stick. I want to see her with a flamethrower.
“She learned to twirl guns. She wanted to do as much fighting and stunts as possible. So we were ratcheting her up. I mean, all of the things you’re not supposed to do with an actor like Cate Blanchett.”
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Greenblatt, who plays an unstable pre-teen obsessed with explosives, said it was ‘a lucky charm of opportunity to watch and observe and soak in how [Blanchett] handles herself’.
The 16-year-old star, who has made a name for herself in the multi-billion dollar Avengers: Infinity War and the Oscar-nominated Barbie, says of her incredible success at such a young age: “I don’t really know what’s going on, man.
“I feel like, definitely, the last year has been a pinch me moment. I feel like everything's fake. I never thought I'd get the opportunity to have the life that I do.”
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She says she has ‘so much joy and gratitude’ from being able to work with Roth, Blanchett, Curtis, Hart and Black.
“It was the experience of a lifetime,” Roth adds.
Borderlands hits cinemas on Thursday August 8.
Topics: Film, Gaming, Jack Black, Celebrity, Entertainment
Simon Fearn