New footage from the Borderlands movie was shown at CinemaCon. Director Eli Roth and Tiny Tina actress Ariana Greenblatt were both present at the event and shared stories from making the video game movie.
Borderlands at CinemaCon
Borderlands character posters were hanging in the lobby to hype people up.
Eli Roth said that he managed to cast Cate Blanchett as Lilith by telling her “People love seeing you with a conductor stick, and I’m going to throw a flame thrower in your hand,”. He said she was down because Escape from New York is one of her favorite movies.
The filmmaker added, “You’ve seen [her] twirling the baton [in Tár], but you haven’t seen her twirling guns behind her back. She’s a master at it. A big part of the fun of the movie is watching it and thinking, ‘I can’t believe they all did this crazy stuff.’ Cate with a flame-thrower — a real flame-thrower — come on! That’s pretty badass.”
Eli Roth said that he made the Borderlands movie in the vein of all the movies he loved as a kid, naming Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max. “We’ve been able to craft a story with all kinds of Easter eggs for hardcore gamers, but also a movie that’s accessible for fans,”
Ariana Greenblatt (16 at the time 13 while filming) said to laughs that filming with her co-stars allowed her to have new “uncles, aunts, grandmas.”.
She also mentioned “I feel like I’ve just been so fortunate and lucky to have been on the journey that I’ve been on, It blew my mind. To this day, I see the poster and I’m like, ‘Wow. Wow, wow, wow.'”
Eli Roth and Ariana Greenblatt also trolled the other cast; We had the best times. We developed this insane sense of humor where we had an Ipod monitor with Empire. … Jamie Lee Curtis would be like, ‘I have a question?’ We’d be like, ‘Shush, shush, this is the good part this, is the good part.’ We’d have Kevin Hart going crazy and going, ‘Why are you watching My Dinner with Andre for the 40th time?’ The more they got mad, the funnier it got to us. So, it somehow watching those movies got us into the head space for [Borderlands].
There was kind of an invited spontaneity environment while filming the Borderlands movie according to Greenblatt. Many moments had the team asking, “ ‘Was it scripted, was it not?’ And everything Kevin said was not.”
The screenplay went through several iterations but elements from the initial draft by Aaron Berg and Oren Uziel made their way into the movie. Craig Mazin (The Last of Us) wrote the initial screenplay for Borderlands, however, he removed his name from the project after the script was rewritten by Roth, Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier, Joe Crombie, Chris Bremner, and Sam Levinson.
Zak Olkewicz wrote scenes for Miller during the reshoots.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Kate Blanchet, and Jack Black sent a video message to CinemaCon for Borderlands. The schtick of the video is Curtis talking the whole time while everyone tries to get a word in.
Lionsgate showed new footage in an extended Borderlands trailer to the crowd. The “Guardians of the Galaxy” vibe was still there.
The trailer opens with the group in a car, bickering about a smell. Lilith is in a standoff with some bandits, and Roland and Tina arrive in a truck and pick her up, and they’re led on a chase through a canyon. It’s a very visually striking movie, with action, explosions, and alien fights. The trailer ends with the group looking at a flower, saying hope grows in the most unlikely places, only for Claptrap to jump on the flower and smush it.
Borderlands Movie Details
Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B.
Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Black), a wiseass robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other. Based on one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, welcome to BORDERLANDS.
Borderlands premiers in theaters on August 9, 2024.
