“They’ll see it’s different” – Borderlands director Eli Roth responds to critics

Eli Roth, the director of the upcoming Borderlands film, has hit back at critics who have likened the production to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

The movie has transitioned from the best-selling video game series to the big screen, but already, there are concerns that it will be too different from the edgy, irreverent, adult themes that gamers are very familiar with.

Starring Kevin Hart, Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black, Borderlands is released in the US and UK on August 9.

However, the film has received a PG-13 rating leaving fans perplexed with the official trailer adding to the apprehension, with a supposed similarity to Guardians of the Galaxy.

In a Reddit thread discussing the newly assigned rating, there is much disappointment. “They tried to make a movie for everybody that is actually for nobody, tale old as time,” says the top-rated comment. In response to that, another user chimes in with “Exactly. The movie looks like a perfect example of a product made by a committee.”

Borderlands director explains reaction he wants to evoke

Eli Roth is refuting the early criticism, insisting it will live up to expectations.

In conversation with Total Film about the comparisons, the director stated, “There’s going to be similarities no matter what you do, just because of the nature of the subject matter.”

“I was very conscious of not remaking Guardians. (Audiences will) see the movie, and they’ll see it’s different.”

On the challenge of successfully adapting the themes of the smash-hit video game into the film, Roth added, “I said, ‘I don’t want (audiences) to be like, ‘Oh, that was a good video game movie.’ I want them to say, ‘That was a really fun science-fiction film, period’.”

The reception to the movie will be an interesting one. Will there be enough to satisfy fans that the content of the post-apocalyptic action comedy, which began with 2009’s Borderlands, is strong enough on its own merit, without obvious comparisons to the vibrant space opera Guardians of the Galaxy, which premiered in 2014 and has gotten two sequels?

That remains to be seen, but the overlap in style and subject is an apparent one.

Featured image credit: Lionsgate