Cate Blanchett in talks to join Eli Roth’s video game movie Borderlands

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Six time Oscar nominee, two time winner Cate Blanchett obviously enjoyed working with director Eli Roth on the 2018 kid-friendly genre film THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS, as Variety is reporting that she is in talks to work with Roth again on his upcoming video game adaptation BORDERLANDS.

The BORDERLANDS video game series began in 2009 and has been massively successful over the years. A sci-fi first person shooter, the original game had the following set-up: 

In the distant future of the year 2864, several colonization ships head to a planet on the edge of the galaxy: Pandora. The colonists are drawn there in search of a better life as well as vast mineral resources that are said to be on the planet, free for the taking.

Some time after settling, the colonists discover that the planet offers little aside from decrepit alien ruins. When the companies mining the planet leave, they let loose the criminals they had employed as forced labor and left any other colonists there. Some of the settlers seek to get rich quick by discovering alien technology, most others are just trying to survive. After seven Earth years, the planet's slow orbit brings a transition from winter to spring, and many dangerous, horrifying creatures begin to emerge from hibernation, making Pandora even more dangerous.

A beacon of hope for the remaining colonists emerges in the form of a mysterious alien Vault carved in the side of a mountain. This Vault is said to contain vast stores of alien technology and secrets. The only problem is that the people who discovered the Vault were completely wiped out by some sort of protective force, with the only evidence of their discovery being a scattered radio transmission, proclaiming the Vault's majesty, but not its location. The stories of this wealth has sparked renewed interest in Pandora, and corporations and treasure hunters have begun to return to the wastelands to try and claim the treasures of the Vault.

One of the playable characters in the first game, and one of the main protagonists in the franchise, is Lilith, "one of only six women in the galaxy that belong to the powerful siren class, wielding incredible, superhuman powers." This is the role Blanchett is in talks to play.

Roth will be directing BORDERLANDS from a screenplay by Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin. The film is being produced by Erik Feig of Picturestart and Avi and Ari Arad of Arad Productions. Randy Pitchford, executive producer of the BORDERLANDS franchise and founder of Gearbox Software, and Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, serve as executive producers. The project is set up at Lionsgate and James Myers and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing it for the studio, while Emmy Yu is overseeing for Arad Productions and Lucy Kitada is overseeing for Picturestart.

I have never played a BORDERLANDS game, and actually knew nothing about the franchise until the announcement of this movie, but the idea of Cate Blanchett using superhuman powers to dispatch horrifying creatures does appeal to me.