We’re all happy that Sonic finally got a reasonably good movie, but let’s hope that Hollywood doesn’t take the wrong lessons from this, like, say, that video games should be mined for potential adaptations the way comic books have been. Not every video game lends itself to a movie, as we’ve learned in the decades since video games were invented and movie studios first started trying to figure out how to stretch a plumber killing turtles and eating mushrooms into a full-length feature. We would obviously never judge a movie before it has even started filming, but it’s important for Hollywood to recognize that not everything makes sense as a movie.
Anyway, IndieWire is reporting that Eli Roth is going to try his hand at directing a movie based on Gearbox’s Borderlands games with Lionsgate. The script comes from Emmy-winner Craig Mazin—of Chernobyl and Scary Movie 3 fame—and in a statement, Roth noted that he could not be doing this “with a better script, producing team, and studio.” Combined with that and the support of Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford (of Medieval Times fame), Roth says this “really feels like a perfect storm of creators coming together.” He also promises that this will be a “new classic” that “fans of the game will love” and will “find new audiences globally.” So he clearly has some high hopes for this thing.
For those who don’t know Borderlands, the games primarily take place on a planet called Pandora (it predates Avatar by a hair) where there are monsters and evil rich guys and rampaging gangs of Mad Max villains, and all of them have a very specific sense of humor. That’s all sort of beside the point, though, because the real draw of Borderlands is that the games are full of countless ridiculous weapons that you can find and use to slaughter bad guys more efficiently. It’ll be hard for a movie to capture the thrill of finding a gun that shoots grenades and makes a funny noise and does 10 more points of damage than the gun you currently have. The games have “characters” and “a story,” but it’s like saying that McDonald’s has salads. It’s fine, but it’s not what you wait in line for at the drive-thru.
At the very least, this is good news for Cage The Elephant. Roth can’t make this movie without putting that song somewhere in it.
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“The script comes from Emmy-winner Craig Mazin—of Chernobyl and Scary Movie 3 fame”… Well this is wierd.
…okay.
Is it?
…maybe???
Think it’s a reference to the EPIC store exclusivity. Can’t buy it on Steam. Was not originally promoted that way. At least that’s how I read it.
The art direction will make or break this film because Roth’s directing certainly can’t carry it. His last four films have ranged from unwatchable to barely watchable.
I have no faith in this being good, as Eli Roth has never directed a good movie. (Cabin Fever and Hostel could be considered not totally terrible, but they’re definitely not good movies) He’s basically an upscale Uwe Boll.
I love Borderlands (I even have a soft spot for Eli Roth), but NO. This seems like an awful idea. I truly believe video game movies will eventually get it right the way comic book movies did, but I just don’t see a good Borderlands movie coming from anybody. Telltale managed to scrape a fun story from it, but even as a fan, I think of the Borderlands plots and characters as mildly interesting at best and utterly obnoxious at worst.
I agree about Telltale, they clearly got the best out of the setting and characters. Presequel was pretty good at that as well. I just am not sure about Eli Roth cause that makes me think this is going to be like a gorier version of the games and kind of iron out the humor. He seems like personally a pretty funny guy but I can’t think of his movies as being particularly comedic, and humor (or attempts at it) seem to be a hallmark of Borderlands.
Some of the Borderlands characters, especially when you play through the game a few times, can really wear thin. So hopefully the movie realizes that and acts accordingly. Idris Elba as Roland, Pedro Pascal as Mordecai, Amy Adams as Lilith, Tom Hardy as Brick. Ryan Reynolds as Handsome Jack.
I will say, if this movie does happen, I’ll concede that a Handsome Jack story could turn out well (Ryan Reynolds is a great choice, too). For all my gripes with the universe, Jack was surprisingly well written and interesting beyond the “A-hyuk, ‘Butt stallion’!” stuff. Not unlike early Deadpool, fittingly enough.
Yeah that’s why I like the Pre-sequel and the telltale games because spending all that time with Jack you almost empathize with the guy. He can definitely be likeable at times and then you see him turn into a power hungry monster like right before your eyes.
Cabin Fever is overtly a horror/comedy. The Hostel movies each have some kind of “punchline” towards the end that plays like a sick joke. Knock Knock literally ends on back to back jokes. His fake Thanksgiving trailer in Grindhouse is hilarious. I never watched Green Inferno, because I am not a fan of the sub-genre it was riffing on, and I did not watch his Death Wish remake because it looked awful, but everything else he’s done has comedic elements.
Oh yeah his trailer was pretty funny. Forgot about that. I haven’t seen Knock Knock but heard good things. Anyway his tone of humor mostly seems different than Borderlands. Like, his is dark and sick rather than broad and overt and insistent like in the games.
It would have to be an animated Adam Reed joint, that’s the only workable solution I can imagine.
That’s one trainwreck I can’t wait to watch. Should’ve been a tv show.
I work at a biggish company and someone on our campus has a Vault emblem bumper sticker on their car and actually paid for the vanity plate “VLTHNTR,” so at least one person on Earth is excited.
If there’s anyone who could capture a completely misanthropic sense of edgy-for-the-sake-of-edginess humor that constantly seeks your approval, it would be Eli Roth.
But before it comes out, it will be removed from the theater where it said it would appear and appear instead at a different theater that isn’t convenient for you.
I’ll give you a ticket, but first you gotta go kill this guy who lives at the top of a construction crane in a swamp full of critters.
Oh God, the entire first hour is going to just be a montage of someone shooting variations of the same small creatures, isn’t it?
He’s a good director with some big misses and big successes. I just have a hard time imagining the story in open world games like this as particularly interesting. Sure a few characters in the older games (OK, just Captain Jack and Claptrap) had some fun banter. Beyond that… there’s not a lot of plot. Maybe if he dove into the nature of corporate warfare and mercenaries in a post-government future? There are interesting concepts to be sure, I just wonder if they wouldn’t be better suited as original stories rather than confined to an IP.
I look forward to the director’s cut where the protagonist kills the same enemy over and over again for eight hours because it never drops the macguffin that’s been driving the plot.—
While I’m not at all looking forward to this, and have a hard time imagining I won’t skip it whenever (if) it comes out, the BL universe *does* have plenty of room for a decent story. The Telltale series was actually quite fun, IMO, even given that they replaced the primary gameplay loop with “watch cutscenes for awhile and occasionally click some dialogue options,” so with a good enough script and characters, it could maybe work.That said, I’d honestly rather just play another Telltale-like series than see a movie. I found the live-action Siren communication vids in BL3 to be so distracting I replaced ‘em with videos of corgis and greyhounds instead.
A plumber killing turtles and eating mushrooms? How has Harmony Korine not yet made that movie?
The gameplay is definitely a draw to the main series, but the good folks at Telltale Games have shown us that the characters and the world can prove to have a surprising amount of depth. The story and adventures in “Tales From the Borderlands” was pretty good but the characters were the best part. That and the music/montages.
Pandora and the saga of Handsome Jack was never much of an enticing story but if they flesh out the characters and dialogue it could be a solid movie. Mad Max with humor, even though the humor in the majority of the series is a mixed bag, except for the Pre-Sequel and Tales, those were mostly hilarious.
Idris Elba as Roland, Pedro Pascal as Mordecai, Amy Adams as Lilith, Tom Hardy as Brick. Ryan Reynolds as Handsome Jack.
As someone that finds the loot collection/comparison aspect of Borderlands the worst part of the game, I’m cautiously optimistic about this. The game has enough of a distinct aesthetic and particular sense of humour that it’s not impossible to throw on top of a generic treasure hunting plot and come up with a half decent film. The series is already a deliberate farce of itself, so it’s at least somewhat protected from becoming the unintentional parody that most game adaptations become.
If any movie needs to use that Rotoscope technology from Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly and Undone it is this movie.
Combined with that and the support of Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford (of Medieval Times fame), Roth says this “really feels like a perfect storm of creators coming together.” He also promises that this will be a “new classic” that “fans of the game will love” and will “find new audiences globally.” So he clearly has some high hopes for this thing.Most recent films directed by Eli Roth:Death Wish (2018): 18% RT, 13.1M box officeKnock Knock (2015): 37% RT, 0.3M box officeThe Green Inferno (2013): 37% RT, 7.2M box officeI think this will be a storm of something, but it will not be perfect unless you have a fetish for feces. I guess that’s a kind of global audience.
If it wasn’t based on a game and you heard a movie starring an obnoxious R2D2, a tween explosive expert, a sniper with a blood thirsty attack bird, women with force like powers but with more visual splendor, a sentient robot that has a gun tooting monkey as a side kick, and girls who can summon a droid from thin air or a mech from the sky, and featured non cliqued representation of ethnic and LGBT characters, who are battling giant monsters, manic depressive robots and shrieking finatics, using countless ridiculous weapons that make funny noises, to defeat an evil rich guy that thinks he’s the hero of the film.
You’d be wet with excitement.
(And yes I get the fact that Eli Roth is directing it might temper said wetness somewhat)
AV Club: “We’re all happy that Sonic finally got a reasonably good movie”
Also AV Club (in the link from the previous comment): “No digital makeover (or smaller teeth) can fix everything wrong with Sonic The Hedgehog”