Cate Blanchett is teaming up with a special group of ragtag friends to help her take on an alien planet in Borderlands.
The trailer, which was released by Lionsgate on Wednesday, July 24, shows Blanchett’s Lilith returning to her candy-colored home planet of Pandora to locate the missing daughter of Atlas (Édgar Ramírez). To help her with her mission is a group of fellow misfits, played by the likes of Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black and Florian Munteanu. Together, the group set out to battle an alien species and a myriad of dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets.
The trailer — set to Electric Light Orchestra’s 1976 hit, “Do Ya” — reveals that Greenblatt’s Tiny Tina (a feral pre-teen demolitionist) may be the key to opening the vault that helps them complete their mission. That, of course, won’t be easy as the group finds themselves being attacked, chased and peed on by giant tentacled aliens out to destroy them.
“How are we going to get through this?” Blanchett can be seen asking as Hart’s Roland, tosses a stuffed bunny explosive down a tunnel. “Everybody run!” the wisecracking robot, Claptrap (Black), says in response before the credits roll.
Borderlands, which is based on the video game of the same name, hits theaters on August 9. Eli Roth serves as director and cowriter alongside Joe Crombie. Roth told Hollywood Insider in April that while the film is definitely an “adaption” of its source material, he worked “closely” with Gearbox Software founder Randy Pitchford to honor the game and work in as many “Easter eggs” as possible.
“I want to make sure we are in the world of Borderlands but first and foremost we are making a great movie,” Roth explained of his creative approach. “And if people play the game they’re going to love it but if they have never played the game they’re going to love the movie. So as someone who knew the game but wasn’t intimately familiar I could focus on making a great movie.”
He continued, “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t breaking the rules of the universe but if I wanted to adapt something, [Randy] was, like, ‘Oh, go for it.’ The games are the games and the movie is the movie.”
Roth confessed his deep love for sci-fi films is what first drew him to the project,. “Fun, big, crazy sci-fi movies like Fifth Element and Raiders of the Lost Ark and wild movies, like Escape From New York,” he explained. “So to have the chance to kind of, like, blend all of those elements — a little bit of Mad Max, a little bit of Star Wars — into this universe, I jumped at the chance.”
Blanchett, Roth noted, was at the top of his list for Lilth after the duo previously worked together on The House With a Clock in Its Walls — and the rest of the A-list cast fell in to place from there.
“I was obviously most excited to work with Cate Blanchett, I mean, she’s incredible,” he gushed. “We had the best time working together [before], so as soon as I had Cate, I knew I had a chance at Jack Black. Once you have Cate Blanchett, it’s easy, because she comes on and everyone else wants to come on.”
Borderlands hits theaters on August 9.
