Kevin Hart In Talks For A Big Role In The Borderlands Movie
Borderlands is one of the best-selling video game franchises ever, with four games in the main series. This includes the most recent installment, Borderlands 3, which came out just last year. As an open world action role-playing game, many fans praise Borderlands for its multiplayer co-op gameplay capabilities. The series of games is set on a planet called Pandora, rendered in a striking art style best described as space-western. Players choose from different "Vault Hunters" at the beginning of the game, who are people who come to Pandora to battle the dangerous creatures there as they search for the alien riches hidden all over the planet.
A movie adaptation has been in development since 2015, when Variety announced that a Borderlands film was in the works from Lionsgate and producers Avi and Ari Arad. In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter reported that screenwriter Aaron Berg had joined the project to write the script. After a change in writers in 2018, the Borderlands movie finally seemed to be gaining steam, and it was soon announced that the movie would focus on the character of Lilith.
It appears that slow and steady wins the race in the case of the Borderlands film, as the next update was Eli Roth's addition as director and Cate Blanchett's casting as Lilith, both of which were announced in early 2020. Not letting the current pandemic slow them down too much, Borderlands might've just found one of its other key characters in Kevin Hart.
Kevin Hart may be joining the Borderlands film as Roland
According to an exclusive story from The Illuminerdi, Hart is currently in talks to join the film as the character Roland, a highly-trained soldier and veteran of the oppressive military force known as the Crimson Vance. The character, who is efficient with all weapons, is featured in Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, but is missing in action from 2019's Borderlands 3. Alongside Hart's Roland will be Blanchett's Lilith, who is a "Siren," or someone who has notable magical powers. Both Roland and Lilith are characters only playable in the first game, Borderlands, though they are NPCs in the subsequent games. If this story about Hart's involvement turns out to be true, then Blanchett and Hart will be a very exciting duo to lead Borderlands.
The report announcing Roth's arrival in the director's seat also stated that Emmy-winning writer Craig Mazin would be penning the script — the third writer to work on the project — with Lionsgate Motion Picture Group President Nathan Kahane promising that the Borderlands film "will be a fresh, compelling, and cinematic event for moviegoers and fans of the game." The report also claimed that the movie would have a late 2020 start date, but this has since been affected by COVID-19. With no further news of production dates, it's likely that the movie will now be planning to start filming in early to mid-2021.