SAN DIEGO – Borderlands, Hollywood’s newest adaptation of a video game, has two Oscar winners – Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis – leading its cast.
Opening in Singapore cinemas on Aug 8, the science-fiction action comedy – based on the popular video-game franchise of the same name – follows a bounty hunter named Lilith (Blanchett) as she grudgingly returns to her home planet, the strange and perilous Pandora.
Her job is to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful man, Atlas (Edgar Ramirez). But she then discovers that the child is the key to opening a secret vault containing a mysterious treasure.
Helping Lilith is a team of misfits that includes oddball scientist Dr Tannis (Curtis), former elite mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart) and the wise-cracking robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black). Rounding out the cast are Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina and Florian Munteanu as Krieg.
Borderlands’ American director Eli Roth had directed Blanchett and Black on the fantasy comedy The House With A Clock In Its Walls (2018), and wanted to work with them again.
Blanchett – who won the Best Actress Oscar for the comedy drama Blue Jasmine (2013) and Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the biopic The Aviator (2004) – is known for tackling weighty dramatic roles.
But Roth, 52, saw the 55-year-old Australian star doing something different here.
“The first person to sign on was Cate, and I said, ‘I want you to play a bada**. I want you shooting guns and a flamethrower and twirling’,” he says at San Diego Comic-Con, the famed pop culture convention, in July.
“And she was totally game and went all in,” adds Roth, who is best known for writing and directing gory horror films such as Hostel (2005) and Cabin Fever (2002).
“Then once we had Cate, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart and everybody else came on board.”
For Curtis, working with Blanchett was the main draw.
“I did it because they told me Cate Blanchett was going to be in the movie and that I had scenes with her,” says the 65-year-old American veteran, who starred in the Halloween horror franchise (1978 to 2022) and took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the sci-fi comedy drama Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).
“She is such a great artiste and I thought, ‘I get to be in a movie with her.’”
Roth, who co-wrote Borderlands’ screenplay, also wanted to tip his hat to several beloved sci-fi action films.
“Everything I’ve done before has been much more reality-based and kind of shooting on location, but this is set on another planet 3,000 years in the future.
“I love movies like The Fifth Element (1997), Escape From New York (1981) and Barbarella (1968) – things where each set that you go to, it looks completely different, and it’s not our reality even though it’s obviously reflective of it,” he says.
“So, all my favourite films are kind of thrown into a blender here. I just wanted to do something that would be totally insane and fun.”
But Roth and his cast took the story’s video-game DNA seriously.
“We all played the game. The video-game company took us through the whole thing and we had the game on constantly in the offices.
“So, we were all up to speed by the time we were making the movie,” he says.
While on a flight to Budapest in Hungary to begin the shoot, Curtis was also fully briefed on her character – a fan favourite in the games – by one of the executives at the video-game company.
She recalls: “She ended up sitting next to me on the plane and basically downloaded Tannis’ whole story – her deep connection to Lilith’s family and her own personal stuff – which I embraced wholeheartedly.
“I loved that there’s a deep history that I’m then interpreting, so I don’t have to make it up that much. I just have to stay true to what was on the page, but also what was in the hearts of the people who love these characters,” the actress says.
And Roth believes fans of Borderlands will be happy with the result.
“I think we caught the spirit of the game and they’re going to love the energy, fun and mayhem of it.”
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