#Haley Bennett Joins Eli Roth’s Borderlands Movie as an All-New Character

The long-awaited Borderlands movie continues to come together at Lionsgate. Ever since Eli Roth (Hostel, The House With a Clock in Its Walls) boarded last year as director, things have been moving right along. Now, the video game adaptation has added yet another cast member in the form of Haley Bennett (The Magnificent Seven, The Girl on the Train). However, Bennett won’t be playing a character familiar to fans of the game. Instead, she will be playing a brand new character being added to the universe specifically for the movie.

According to a press release, Haley Bennett will play a new role in the Borderlands movie. Details are largely being kept under wraps beyond that but it is said she will be a “key to the past of Cate Blanchett’s character, Lilith.” Bennett joins an A-list cast that, aside from Blanchett as Lilith, also includes Kevin Hart as Roland, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as Krieg and Jack Black as Claptrap.
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The latest draft of the screenplay was written by Craig Mazin. The two-time Emmy winner is best known for his work on HBO’s acclaimed miniseries Chernobyl. Avi Arad and Ari Arad are on board as producers via their company Arad Productions. Erik Feig is also producing through Picturestart. Randy Pitchford, the executive producer of the Borderlands video game franchise and founder of the Gearbox Entertainment Company, is on board as an executive producer on the project. Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive, is also serving as an executive producer.

Haley Bennett has been on the rise in recent years. The actress most recently starred in director Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy, as well as the thriller The Devil All the Time, both of which were produced for Netflix. She is set to star alongside Peter Dinklage in Joe Wright’s upcoming Cyrano. Some of her other credits include Swallow, The Red Sea Diving Resort and The Equalizer.

Borderlands is based on the best-selling video game of the same name from developer Gearbox Software and publisher 2K. It ranks as one of the most successful video game franchises in the world, with more than 68 million copies sold around the globe. Borderlands 2, in particular, was a massive success, selling 24 million copies, ranking as the highest-selling title in the history of 2K. The most recent installment, Borderlands 3, was released in September 2019 and was recently made available for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It has sold more than 12 million units worldwide, in addition to winning the award for Best Multiplayer Game at Gamescom 2019 and Best Ongoing Game at Gamescom 2020.

There is no word yet on how soon production will begin. But things in Hollywood are, slowly but surely, starting to get back to normal. Lionsgate has also not set a release date just yet. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as any further details on the project are made available.

Topics: Borderlands