The video game genre continues to provide Hollywood with creative inspiration, and there’s an exciting crop of releases in the pipeline. In less than three weeks the Mortal Kombat reboot premieres in theaters and on HBO Max, while Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is penciled in for a November debut, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is in production, HBO’s episodic adaptation of The Last of Us starts filming this summer and Tom Holland’s Uncharted is coming next February.
One of the more exciting projects on the horizon is Eli Roth’s Borderlands, which continues to see the filmmaker pivoting away from his horror roots, with his last effort from behind the camera being underrated family fantasy The House with a Clock in Its Walls. The script hails from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, and the movie has assembled an eclectic and hugely intriguing ensemble.
Cate Blanchett takes top billing as Lilith, Kevin Hart will try his hand at being an action hero having signed on as Roland and Jamie Lee Curtis is on board as Dr. Patricia Tannis, with Jack Black lending his signature manic energy to the voice of Claptrap. Shooting commenced in Hungary on Thursday, and the first behind the scenes photos have already arrived, which you can check out below.
The game series has sold over 45 million copies around the world, so there’s clearly a sizeable built-in fanbase eager to see what the movie has in store. Roth’s filmography has been very inconsistent and the track record of console-to-screen adaptations is patchy at best, but it’s hard not to look at that cast and think Borderlands could turn out to be something pretty special, and these are only going to be the first of many BTS shots that we get as production continues over the coming months.
