WRECKING CREW
FOR ANARCHIC VIDEO-GAME ADAPTATION BORDERLANDS, DIRECTOR ELI ROTH ASSEMBLED AN ECLECTIC CAST OF A-LISTERS. WE SPEAK TO THEM ABOUT A VERY VIOLENT ODYSSEY
WORDS OLLY RICHARDS
Odd couple: Gang leader Lilith (Cate Blanchett) and Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt)
Director Eli Roth gets comfortable on set with Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black).
Tina and scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) sync faces
SHOOTING FOR THE STARS
It took a long time to tame the strange world of Borderlands. The video-game series, which debuted in 2009 and has sold around 80 million copies, takes place on a ravaged planet, Pandora (not that one), where assorted lunatics fight for money and for simple love of carnage. In 2015, it was reported that Lionsgate was developing it for cinema. It took a few years to find a director wild enough to take it on.
Eli Roth (director): I’d always wanted to do something that involved real world-building. Something big, fun and not too serious — on the Star Wars, Fifth Element end of the spectrum. Ari Arad, the producer, had approached Randy Pitchford, the game’s creator, about making a movie out of Borderlands about seven years before I got involved. They’d been through iteration after iteration. There are so many characters in the game, and they’d tried every one you can think of. It’s like Dungeons & Dragons — there are so many possible stories, where do you even begin? Then they came up with the idea of this [treasure] vault of Pandora and this villain, Atlas. The script I read was terrific, and of course I came in with my own ideas.
Edgar Ramírez (Atlas): In the game, the enemy is the Atlas Corporation. In the film, that corporation is distilled into a man: me. I am the most powerful man in the universe and most evil person you could imagine. My daughter has been kidnapped and I need the best bounty hunter to find her.
The script Roth read, and further developed (Roth and Joe Crombie share the screenwriting credit), centred on that bounty hunter: Lilith, a world-weary woman who left Pandora years ago and hoped never to return. The reluctant leader of the film’s ragtag crew, Lilith required an actor who could do comedy, drama and action, and anchor a ridiculous world.