It’s game on for Cate Blanchett. Sources tell Variety the Oscar-winning actress is in talks to star as Lilith in Lionsgate’s “Borderlands,” an adaptation of the popular video game. Lionsgate had no comment. Eli Roth is directing with Avi and Ari Arad producing through Arad Prods along with Erik Feig, who is also producing via his Picturestart banner. Craig Mazin, who won an Emmy for writing “Chernobyl,” has written the latest screenplay draft.
If a deal is completed, it’s another major win for the studio in recent weeks following the news they would team with Francis Lawrence on a prequel in the “Hunger Games” franchise as well as bringing on Eric Warren Singer to pen the next installment in the “Now You See Me” series.
“Borderlands,” launched in 2009, is a role-playing first-person shooter game created and developed by Gearbox Software and published by Take-Two Interactive Software’s 2K label. The game is set on the frontier of a sci-fi universe — the planet of Pandora — which has been abandoned by a mega-corporation prior to the game events. The series has sold more than 57 million units worldwide. The most recent installment, “Borderlands 3,” was released last September. Lilith is one of the main protagonists in the franchise, and one of the playable characters in the first “Borderlands” game. She is one of only six women in the galaxy that belong to the powerful “siren” class, wielding incredible, superhuman powers. The film’s executive producers are Randy Pitchford, executive producer of the “Borderlands” video game franchise and founder of Gearbox Software, and Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive.
James Myers and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing the project on behalf of Lionsgate. Emmy Yu is overseeing the film for Arad Productions. Lucy Kitada will oversee the project for Picturestart. Blanchett can currently be seen in the acclaimed FX miniseries “Mrs. America,” which marks her first cable TV gig. She was also seen in “Where’d You Go Bernadette?,” which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Most recently, Blanchett was filming the Guillermo del Toro thriller “Nightmare Alley” with Bradley Cooper until production was stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
