Borderlands cast hopes to satisfy fans: 'There's nothing meaner than an unhappy gamer' (exclusive)
Published on January 15, 2026 EDT

The cast and director of Borderlands know they need to do right by the fans of the high-selling video game franchise. As Jamie Lee Curtis tells Entertainment Weekly, "There's nothing meaner than an unhappy gamer fan."

Curtis joined filmmaker Eli Roth and costars Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, and Florian Munteanu, as well as a cutout of Cate Blanchett's face at EW's Comic-Con 2024 suite in San Diego to talk about the film, in theaters Aug. 9.

"If you change the canon, if you change the lore, if you alter what they understand is the reality of the game, you must honor the reality that they live in because it is a game they live in," Curtis, who plays Dr. Patricia Tannis, says of honoring the fan base.

Borderlands stars Blanchett as Lilith, a fiery-haired gunslinger hired by the wealthiest, most powerful man in the galaxy, Atlas (Ramirez), to find his missing daughter. The mission brings her back to her home world of Pandora, a wasteland globe she's long avoided. She's then thrust together with a band of misfits, including explosives expert Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), strongman berserker Krieg (Munteanu), ex-soldier Roland (Hart), droid Claptrap (Jack Black), and scientist Tannis.

Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate

"Of course, we have such a big fan base following the video games like Borderlands... you want to stay as close to it as possible," Hart explains. "You want to give them things that they can revert back to and understand, but then you also gotta understand it's the movie business. So, how do we connect the story and make sure the story follows the storyline but also has a level of heart, care, and follow-through that we needed to have?"

Speaking of Randy Pitchford, the head of Borderlands game studio GearBox, and his gaming developer wife Kristy Pitchford, Hart jokes, "They're very pissed that Roland is small, and I did everything I could to grow," poking fun at his own height. "I tried. I drank milk literally from the beginning of the shoot to the end. They put me on the stretcher; we did whatever we could to try to get the height. It just didn't work!"

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Watch the full Comic-Con interview with the cast of Borderlands in the video above, and read more about the making of the film in EW's cover story.

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