Lionsgate's Borderlands Movie Scores Eli Roth As Director

The movie based on hit game series Borderlands has been in the pipeline for years with little to show for the time that has passed. A major new development was announced this week, however, indicating that the project may finally be picking up speed. Eli Roth, the man best known for directing some hit horror movies, has agreed to direct the movie, he revealed on Twitter.Borderlands is a video game series from 2K Games and Gearbox Software that revolves around a planet called Pandora and the hunt for advanced alien technology. Players must face dangerous bandits and wildlife, completing a variety of missions while keeping a private company's army at bay. The first game was released in 2009.

In a tweet on Thursday, Eli Roth announced that he will be joining the game studios and Lionsgate to direct the movie, which was first announced back in 2015. Unfortunately, Roth didn't have any details about the feature film, but he did share a Photoshop'd image of his head on one of the game's bandits.

Production on the movie is scheduled to start later on in 2020, according to Deadline, which reports that Erik Feig of Picturestart and Avi and Ari Arad of Arad Productions are producing the film. Lionsgate has been the studio behind the project for around five years and it doesn't seem that will be changing.

In a statement about his new role, Roth said:

I'm so excited to dive into the world of Borderlands and I could not be doing it with a better script, producing team, and studio. I have a long, successful history with Lionsgate – I feel like we have grown up together and that everything in my directing career has led to a project of this scale and ambition. I look forward to bringing my own energy, ideas, and vision to the wild, fun, and endlessly creative world of the game.