Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. If you're not a gamer you might need a little help understanding why Borderlands coming to the big screen could be kind of awesome news.
The game is about as politically incorrect as you can get with pitch black humor pouring out of every character, location and quest in the game. On the surface it's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure story where a bunch of treasure hunters search the galaxy for massive vaults filled with alien weaponery. Big gun corporations pretty much rule everything and are desperate to reach these vaults in order to get a leg up on the competition. The playable characters are known as vault hunters, kinda Boba Fett-like in-it-for-themselves adventurers.
Imagine Mad Max with the humor of Deadpool all filtered through a RoboCop-ish commentary on big business and then put it onto a crazy alien planet and you're in the right ballpark.
Gearbox, the developers of the Borderlands games, has announced that they're partnering with Avi and Ari Arad to bring about a big screen adapation. I'm conflicted here because the Arads did their damndest to fuck up the Spider-Man movies and succeeded by the end. But they also do still have a decent amount of cache in Hollywood and if they pull off a Borderlands movie it could be something special.
They didn't ask me for my advice, but I'm gonna give it to 'em anyway. You want Handsome Jack in the movie. I love the first game, but the main villain in Borderlands 2 is amazing. It's like Paul Reiser's Burke from Aliens if you genetically spliced him with The Joker. You want that strong, central villain in your movie. Claptrap will be great and I definitely want Tiny Tina in there somewhere, but you have to get Handsome Jack front and center.
Also, don't fuck around and make a milquetoast PG-13 version of this story. I know it's a harder sell, but the only reason to adapt this game is if you're going to nail the dark, fucked up humor.
I really need to start that editorial I've been talking about for a while... about how video game adaptations are going to be the next big thing. I keep dragging my feet on it I'll be way behind the curve! Warcraft, Assassin's Creed, Borderlands and that lingering threat of an Uncharted movie... something's gonna hit and hit big. When that happens you'll see an explosion of video game films.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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