Hungary is currently being promoted to film production companies and studios as "your safe filming location", and an article posted by The Hollywood Reporter on the Hungarian production boom has revealed that one of the projects that will soon begin filming in the country is director Eli Roth's video game adaptation Borderlands.
Adam Goodman of Hungarian production services provider MidAtlantic Films told The Hollywood Reporter,
We've opened up space for a Lionsgate film, Borderlands [starring Cate Blanchett and Kevin Hart], we're doing season three of Jack Ryan for Paramount TV, and we're doing a Marvel project, which, for the usual security reasons, I can't talk about. We're basically fully booked for the coming cycle, until the summer, which, hopefully, will be the last cycle of shows we have to do under COVID-19 protocols."
So it sounds like Roth will be rolling on Borderlands before this summer.
The Borderlands video game series began in 2009. 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.
Cate Blanchett is set to star in the film as Lilith, "one of only six women in the galaxy that belong to the powerful siren class, wielding incredible, superhuman powers." Kevin Hart is believed to be playing Roland, "a highly-trained soldier and veteran of the oppressive military force known as the Crimson Vance".
Scripted by Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin, Borderlands 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. James Myers and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing the project for Lionsgate, while Emmy Yu is overseeing for Arad Productions and Lucy Kitada is overseeing for Picturestart.