After the recent release of Hitman: Agent 47 in theatres, Sony’s Uncharted movie and sixth Resident Evil movie finally getting new release dates, and next year’s Assassin’s Creed movie boldly sharing continuity with the game series that inspired it, Hollywood video game adaptations have come up a lot lately. We can now add another one to the ongoing roster as well, with studio, Lionsgate announcing today that they have secured the film rights to 2K and Gearbox’s highly popular co-op first-person shooter/action-RPG hybrid series, Borderlands, and are proceeding ahead with a film adaptation.
Father/son duo, Avi Arad and Ari Arad, with Avi best being known for helping to realize a handful of Marvel flicks like Spider-Man and Iron Man, will act as producers for the Borderlands movie. Lionsgate also promises that the Borderlands movie will boast the same ‘in-your-face’ attitude as the games, which are famous for their vibrant, yet violent cel-shaded visuals, and rather raucous sense of humour. Beyond that, no details for the movie have been nailed down, beyond the fact that it’s in the early stages of pre-production.
The Borderlands series began with 2009’s Borderlands, which hit PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2009, and Mac the following year. Borderlands was very well-received, particularly for its co-op elements and successful fusion of FPS and RPG gameplay. In 2012, the game saw a sequel, Borderlands 2 on the same platforms, which also expanded to Linux and PlayStation Vita in 2014. Borderlands 2 got even higher praise than its predecessor, particularly for its introduction of fan-favourite villain, Handsome Jack, also receiving an interquel offering, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! late last year, which hit all of the same platforms at once, except for PlayStation Vita, and took place between the events of the first two games, on a separate lunar environment as the series’ usual setting, the alien planet, Pandora.
Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! were bundled together on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One earlier this year in Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, and developer, Gearbox is currently collaborating with Telltale on a spin-off/sequel adventure game hybrid, Tales from the Borderlands, which just recently released its fourth episode for PC, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, iOS, and Android. There is also a top-down iOS spin-off available called Borderlands: Legends, released in 2012, and an upcoming online shooter rendition, Borderlands Online, scheduled to launch in China soon.
Keep looting Eggplante for all news and updates on Borderlands, both the games and the movie.