“[Pitchford] was excited about what we were doing,” Roth recalls. “I’d change some things [from the games], and he’d say, ‘That’s really cool. We should try that in the games!’ It was a good creative connection between the two of us.”
The art style of the Borderlands games is iconic, and it would take a lot of work to translate the cel-shaded dustland of Pandora to the big screen. There was an emphasis on practical builds and effects wherever possible on set, and while the live-action film doesn’t look identical to the games, Roth’s off-kilter sci-fi influences clearly shine through.
“I looked at The Fifth Element and even movies like Barbarella,” Roth says. “There was a whole vehicle team building these badass Atlas vehicles, and we had a working outrunner, so when Cate Blanchett steps off of it, she’s really stepping off of it. It was really fun to watch Randy excited like a kid, geeking out holding all of the Atlas weapons, the Vladof weapons, the Dahl weapons.”
Vehicles, weapons, and loot are major components of the games, but what really made them special were the over-the-top characters. In the film, the original characters are used more as a foundation for the actors to build and expand upon. The cast may seem like an odd mish-mash on paper… and in some ways, they are. But Roth was actually quite deliberate in assembling what is, in his words, “one of the greatest casts in the world.”
Prior to reading the script for Borderlands, Roth had just completed The House with a Clock in Its Walls with Blanchett, and he thought she’d be perfect for the role of Lilith because he knew something about her that most people don’t. “She loves crazy horror movies like Evil Dead,” Roth explains. “When I called her about doing Borderlands, I said, ‘This could be an amazing character for you, like Snake Plissken from Escape from New York!’ and she said, ‘Escape from New York is my favorite movie!’”
Once Blanchett was on board, Roth immediately knew he wanted to cast Black as Claptrap. “They were so good together in The House with a Clock in Its Walls, and I thought, what would be better than a follow-up film where Cate’s a pissed-off bounty hunter and Jack’s an annoying robot?” Hart had expressed he wanted to show he had a serious action movie role in him, which Roth was happy to spotlight, and Curtis and Gina Gershon (who plays fan favorite Mad Moxxi in the film) were natural additions due to their respective resumes.
