Eli Roth wanted to lean into the “anarchy” of adapting video game “Borderlands” for the big screen.
The director told Entertainment Weekly that he channeled the “insanity” of films like John Carpenter’s infamous “Escape from New York” from 1981 and Luc Besson’s 1997 film “The Fifth Element.” Both sci-fi adventure features later became cult classics.
“I wanted to make something totally bonkers and bat-shit crazy, that has the insanity of ‘The Fifth Element‘ or ‘Escape From New York,’” Roth said. “I think there’s a spirit of anarchy and absurdity in the game. I wanted the movie to have that same spirit as well: a movie completely made by lunatics.”
“Borderlands” stars Cate Blanchett as Lillith, the leader of a ragtag group of space mercenaries, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Arianna Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black. The film is adapted from the GearBox video game.
GearBox CEO Randy Pitchford charted how the adaptation came to be, beginning with “X-Men” producers Avi and Ari Arad’s pitch.
“I’m a video-game maker,” Pitchford said. “There’s always people from Hollywood coming to knock, and I usually just say, ‘Thank you, no thank you.’”
However, the Arads had a different take: “I liked the thesis that they came with,” Pitchford added.
Before Roth was on board as the director, Aaron Berg was announced as directing a R-rated version.
“I don’t think at any point any of the above-the-line people, including myself, thought that the right play was for it to be an R-rated movie,” Pitchford explained. “That said, all the time we were flirting with stuff. A lot of it was us finding where this movie would live. It took us a while, but we found it.”
Roth quipped of Pitchford’s process to get “Borderlands” made, “He put Ari through the ringer. They spent seven years trying different storylines with different characters until they landed on this particular one with this particular group.”
Aside from “The Fifth Element” and “Escape From New York,” Roth also found inspiration in Besson’s other feature, controversial crime thriller “Leon: The Professional.” Roth compared actress Ariana Greenblatt to “Leon” alum Natalie Portman, and said during CinemaCon that he encouraged Greenblatt to watch “My Dinner with Andre” to prepare for her “Borderlands” role — “just to fuck with her.”
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