Eli Roth’s long-in-gestation Borderlands movie, starring Cate Blanchett, finally has a release date – it’s out on 9 August 2024. Also: writer Craig Mazin is back on the credits…
It’s probably fitting that Borderlands, the movie adaptation of Gearbox Software’s febrile looter shooter, has had a chaotic and slightly confusing path to our cinema screens. But after stories of reshoots and a lengthy production, its release is finally in sight – director Eli Roth’s Borderlands film is out in cinemas on 9 August 2024.
The date was announced at Comic Con in San Diego (as noted by IGN), though it’s slightly unusual that the news wasn’t joined by a teaser trailer or even a poster. What the movie does have, though, is an updated website, which has a few interesting morsels of information worth noting.
First, there’s a synopsis, which explains what actors Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Jamie Lee Curtis will be getting up to in the film. Here it is:
Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful S.O.B, Atlas (Ramirez). Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Black), a persistently wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.
There’s also another detail on the website worth noting: the Borderlands screenplay is once again credited to screenwriter Craig Mazin and Eli Roth.
Craig Mazin’s back on the credits – at least according to the Borderlands film website. Credit: Lionsgate.
Earlier this month, reports emerged that Mazin had asked to have his name removed from the film’s credits after it was noticed that the screenwriter’s name had been replaced by one Joe Crombie on the Writer’s Guild of America website.
Mazin later issued a statement dismissing those reports, saying, “I am not a credited writer on the film… if the name in question is indeed a pseudonym, all I can say is… it’s not mine.”
Curiously, the WGA still credits the screenplay to Eli Roth and Joe Crombie at the time of writing. Is it an admin error? Some sort of in-joke? Why is Craig Mazin’s name suddenly on the film’s official website?
Whynow Gaming has contacted Lionsgate for comment.
