Borderlands, the film adaptation of Gearbox’s popular looter shooter, has hit another roadbump, as screenwriter Craig Mazin has his name taken off the credits.
Update 14 July 2023: Screenwriter Craig Mazin has since dismissed reports that he asked to have his name removed from the Borderlands movie’s credits. You can read the full report here.
Our original story follows…
11 July 2023: If it ever existed in the first place, the curse of the video game movie adaptation seems to have been broken in recent years, as demonstrated by the success of such films as Sonic The Hedgehog, Detective Pikachu and this year’s barnstormingly popular The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Borderlands, meanwhile, appears to be faring less well. Based on Gearbox Software’s febrile looter shooter of the same name, Borderlands was announced in 2015, with Eli Roth (Hostel) eventually signing on as director.
Filming on the movie was said to have ended in 2021, and it was during post-production that the problems began. Reshoots were ordered in 2022, and then, following private test screenings that November, Deadpool director Tim Miller was reportedly hired to oversee a second round of reshoots in January of this year.
Things went ominously quiet for a while, but there are now reports that Craig Mazin – one of several screenwriters who’ve been involved in the film – has had his name removed from Borderlands' credits. Users on Reddit have noticed (as spotted by our chums at Film Stories) that the film’s writing is now credited to Eli Roth and one Joe Crombie on the WGA website – the latter likely a pseudonym akin to Alan Smithee, a name applied to films when a director has their name taken off the credits.
Read more: Borderlands 3 review | Grates, not great
It doesn’t sound good news for the production, particularly given Mazin’s profile – before writing knock-about comedies like The Hangover, he went on to write the acclaimed HBO series Chernobyl, and then enjoyed even wider success with the small-screen adaptation of The Last of Us, also for HBO.
The Borderlands film has managed to attract an impressive cast – Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jack Black are among the famous names in what we’re presuming would be a loud, comedic, violent sci-fi opus, much like the source games.
For now, though, the adaptation’s production is sounding like a bumpy one. To date, no release date has been announced.
