The Gearbox CEO believes the film’s producers will help ensure a faithful adaptation.
Last August, it was revealed that Lionsgate would be turning the FPS-RPG game series Borderlands into a film.
For the most part, movies based on video games have been mediocre at best (although the upcoming Ratchet and Clank and Assassin’s Creed look promising), but Randy Pitchford, CEO of Borderlands developer Gearbox Software, has faith that this adaptation will be a great film.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Pitchford explains that he wants the Borderlands franchise to exist beyond video games, and he believes a strong way for the series to “reach” people is through film.
Pitchford specifically believes the producers of the film, Avi and Ari Arad, who have produced most of the Fox and Sony Marvel films, will be able to faithfully adapt Borderlands to the big screen, and help draw in a larger audience.
He explained:
“I’ll tell you, I trust those guys a lot. Ari and Avi Arad are great. And Ari really wants to be the guy to figure out how to make good video game movies… There are a lot of guys in video games who feel it’s a big risk to see a film made because so far there haven’t been great examples of great video game films. And fortunately, the Arads figured it out when Avi was doing Marvel and did Spider-Man and Iron Man and X-Men; he figured out how to make comic book movies that are really fun and do right by the franchises that are really engaging and entertaining for large audiences. That gives me a lot of hope that working with them we can figure out a good film.”
Interestingly, Pitchford has also expressed interest in making the Borderlands film R rated, which would seemingly be conducive to broadening the franchise’s audience, but then again, Deadpool was a smash-hit, so anything is possible.
We really hope Pitchford is right, and that the Arad’s will create an awesome Borderlands film. Only time will tell though, as production on the film has yet to begin, or even be announced.
