The long-awaitedBorderlandsfilm is almost here, and despite facing some backlash from dedicated fans of the video game series, it aims to make an explosive splash once it lands in theaters on August 9. TheBorderlandsfilm is a live-action adaptation of the popular video game series of the same name and stars some of Hollywood’s biggest names, such as Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
If history has proven anything, it’s that bringing a video game to life on the big screen, and in live-action format no less, is a difficult task. This is especially true when it comes to a series as beloved by its fans as Gearbox’sBorderlands. Nevertheless, with the help of director Eli Roth and a passionate team of filmmakers, Gearbox has created a theatrical experience it hopes will please fans and newcomers alike. Game Rant had the chance to chat with the CEO and president of the Gearbox Entertainment Company and creator ofBorderlands,Randy Pitchford, about theBorderlandsfilm, its purpose, and its future.The following interview transcript has been edited for clarity.
Bringing Borderlands to the Big Screen
Q: I want to start with something personal. I know this is your brainchild, and it’s come to life in a way that it never has before. We’ve heard plenty from skeptical fans, but I want to know how you feel about it now that it’s done and almost here.
Pitchford:Oh, man. You know, it’s so wild. Honestly, I’m so much looking forward to being in a movie theater with moviegoers to feel their vibe. I think one of the reasons why I’m an entertainer is because I feed off the energy of people. I feel pretty good about it, but I feel like it doesn’t matter how I feel. What matters is what the world feels and any given person.
What’s cool is we’ve started to show the movie to some people, and we’re getting a lot of awesome feedback — people who have played the games and seen the games, but also people who haven’t, and we’re finding it works on a level with all the audiences we’ve been hoping to touch with this. You know, you can’t make everybody happy all the time, but I think we’ve got something here, and I’m really proud of it. I’m really excited for the launch. So far,Borderlandshas some kind of magicto it in the video game space, and I’m very curious to see if it has that same magic in the movie space — and I think it might.
Q: I’d have to agree with you. I’m not one of those skeptical fans; I’m really looking forward to the film. It’s really awesome to hear you say you care about how people who watch it are going to feel, but also that you’re excited for it too.
Pitchford:There are so many different possible customers. I think that the people who are playing our video games the most, I love them. That’s what we do with our video games, to do the best that Gearbox can do to entertain our gameplay audience. There are so many different people that I’ve been thinking about in my personal life, but, to me, the kind of audience that has mattered the most to me is not necessarily the person who’s playing the mostBorderlands— it’s the person who doesn’t play games.
All of us who play games have people in our lives who don’t. If I care about a thing, I kind of want to share it with people who don’t play games. Like, my mom loves me, and she’s proud of me, but she doesn’t play video games. She’ll never know the joy of getting that rare loot drop that she’s been hunting down for hours. She’ll never know what that feels like, but I can take her to the movie, and she’ll feel that. She’ll get to experience some of the vibe from the characters and the universe and the themes and the settings. I think every gamer has people in their lives like that, and they can introduce them to this thing through the movie. That’s what’s been most important to me.
Crafting a Borderlands Film for Everyone
Q: That actually kind of brings me to my new question. How were you able to bridge the gap between fan service and originality to draw in new audiences?
Pitchford:We did a lot of fun stuff. We did a ton of fun stuff in there. I’m so excited for you to see it. You’ll see a lot of little nods and little tips of the hat. We’re winking at you, like, “We know. You know. We know you know.” But we also know that there are a lot of people who are going to see this that have never played aBorderlandsgamebefore, and we need to give them an entry point.
The other thing that’s been fun is we kind of created an alternate universe with the film. I get to do the video games, so I can do whatever I want when we make the video games. We have our storyline, and we have where we’ve been and where we’re headed, and that’s really important to us. I technically have all the control I want to have over that. With the film space, instead of just recreating the exact same stories we’ve already done, we can play with it a little bit and try some different things. One of the smartest decisions I made was to accept that I’m not a filmmaker; I’m a video game developer.
The best filmmakers in the worldwere willing to get involved and help us with this thing, so I decided I would be a resource to them, not a dictator — give them everything and encourage them and influence them, but not try to be authoritative. I had approval over the script, I had approval over the director, and I had approval over the cast, but I wasn’t prescribing anything; I was an influence and offered resources. It was really awesome to see how it took shape in that way because there are things in this film I never would have done in a million years, but some of those are the things I love most.
Every day of shooting, I was on set, and I saw every single second of the film being captured as it was being shot, but this is the closest I think I will ever come to experiencingBorderlandsas an audience, as opposed to the creator. Because Eli made the movie, you know? I was just part of his process. It’s a weird seat for a person like me to be in, but I loved it, and I’m grateful for it. I would absolutely do it again, and I hope we get to make more.
Q: That’s another great segue because I was going to ask, since it takes place in its own universe, it gives you liberality, but does that mean you have plans for future films?
Pitchford:For Lionsgate, it’s going to come down to business. I think they’re pretty confident and pretty happy, but let’s watch how it opens and watch how the movie does, and then we’ll decide at what level we should do more with it. And then you’ve got to figure out how to do it by negotiating everything with everybody. But assuming business supports it, then the question is, “Okay, we have our own angle here. We don’t have to wait on a game to tell a story.”
We’re not going to run into aLord of the Ringsproblem or aHarry Potterproblem, where once you finish the books, no more movies. Or, even worse, theGame of Thronesproblem where the dude hasn’t even written the last book, but they’re trying to tie up the television series. What do you do there? So, we just completely avoided that problem, which gives a huge amount of liberty for the film universe to live its own life and the video game universe to live its own life. They can borrow from each other and touch each other, but they have no dependence on each other.
Q: I definitely agree. Now, this might be a weird question, but I’m really curious. So, one of the biggest things about anyBorderlandsgame is how many different guns there are. Is it possible for you to tell us how many different guns are in the film, and are they going to be as weird as the ones we’ve seen in the games?
Pitchford:So, if the success of theBorderlandsmovie was dependent upon the number of guns that are in the movie, I don’t know if I want to live in this world anymore. We put a lot of cool stuff in there, but it’s not a looter shooter like the video games. No one looked at theTales From the Borderlandsvideo gamesand asked, “How many guns are in it?” But what we did with the film, if you’re aBorderlandsfan, you’ll be like, “Oh, I know that gun! I know that gun!” You’ll notice the stuff, and we make the references there. I had fun with it.
Q: That’s awesome. So, what do you hope is going to be the main takeaway for veteran fans and for newcomers from the movie after they see it?
Pitchford:I don’t know what the main takeaway is going to be, but I have this weird hope that people might figure out whatBorderlandseven means. Because, for me, the name has been about taking things that don’t belong together and living in the space between them. You know, the borderland betweenrole-playing gameand shooter; the borderland between science fiction and western; the borderland between comedy and drama; the borderland between who characters think they are, who they wish they are, and who they actually are; living in that weird, uncomfortable space between two things that don’t go together.
Because it’s an adaptation, it got to exist as a movie that never would have existed. You can’t sell a movie like this. How do you make a movie like this? You can’t do this. But because it’s avideo game adaptation, well, now we get to live in a new borderland between video game and film, and I love that. It’s part of the whole journey of whatBorderlandsis to me — finding that weird spot between things that don’t go together and having fun there, and I think this movie succeeds at that.
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