By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The long-in-the-works film version of the hit video game series is finally going forward with the HOSTEL honcho at the helm.
Variety reports that Eli Roth will direct the BORDERLANDS movie for Lionsgate and producers Avi and Ari Arad and Erik Feig. Emmy winner Craig Mazin (CHERNOBYL) is the latest writer on the film, based on the Gearbox/Take-Two Interactive first-person shooter games in which players go on missions and battle human and alien enemies on the planet Pandora.
“I’m so excited to dive into the world of BORDERLANDS and I could not be doing it with a better script, producing team and studio,” Roth says. “I have a long, successful history with Lionsgate—I feel like we have grown up together and that everything in my directing career has led to a project of this scale and ambition. I look forward to bringing my own energy, ideas and vision to the wild, fun, and endlessly creative world of the game.”
Adds Lionsgate president Nathan Kahane, “With Eli’s vision and Craig’s screenplay, we believe we have cracked the code on bringing the anarchic world of BORDERLANDS to the big screen in a big way that will be a fresh, compelling and cinematic event for moviegoers and fans of the game.”