Janina Gavankar Nabs Key Role in Eli Roth's Borderlands Movie

Janina Gavankar nabs key role in Eli Roth’s live-action Borderlands movie

As production continues on Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie, Deadline brings word that Janina Gavankar (Blindspotting) has officially been cast for a key role in Lionsgate’s upcoming live-action film adaptation of the popular video game series. Gavankar is set to portray the role of Commander Knoxx, who is a all-new character created just for the film.

“An all-new character I named specifically for this story. Janina will play Commander Knoxx, who followed in her father’s footsteps when she joined Atlas’ private army, the Crimson Lance. She is, in a word, badass,” Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford teased.

If you know me, you know that this movie will be a lot more than just another gig for me. I’ll be carrying every writer, dev, voice actor, and gamer that has worked on and played Borderlands, in my heart, as I head to Pandora. https://t.co/uUK1WNFBmJ

— janina gavankar (@Janina) April 12, 2021

Even though this project will mark the actress’ first major feature role in an action film, Gavankar is no stranger to the video game world as she previously lent her voice to a few video games such as 2014’s Far Cry 4, 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds, 2019’s Afterparty and 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II, with the latter also featuring her likeness.

The movie will be based on the bestselling PC and console gaming franchise from developer Gearbox Software and publisher 2K Games. It centers around a group of unlikely heroes called Vault Hunters led by Lilith and Roland, who have been recruited for a retrieval mission. According to Gearbox Soffware CEO, the film will exist in a different universe than the game that is why the film’s story will stray away from the first Borderlands game.

Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful S.O.B., Atlas (Ramirez). Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Black), a persistently wiseass robot. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.

The Borderlands film adaptation will be led by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as Lilith, Edgar Ramirez as Atlas, Kevin Hart as Roland, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Jack Black as Claptrap, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as Krieg, Olivier Richters as Krom, and Haley Bennett in an unknown new role for the series.

Directed by Eli Roth from a script written by Craig Mazin, Borderlands will be produced by Avi Arad and Ari Arad through their Arad Productions banner, and Erik Feig, through PICTURESTART. Randy Pitchford, executive producer of the Borderlands video game franchise and founder of the Gearbox Entertainment Company is executive producing and is joined by Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive. Lionsgate’s James Myers and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing the project along with Arad’s Emmy Yu and Picturestart’s Lucy Kitada and Royce Reeves-Darby.

Borderlands is one of the world’s most successful video game franchises, with more than 57 million units sold-in worldwide, including over 22 million units of Borderlands 2, which is the highest-selling title in the history of 2K. The most recent installment, Borderlands 3, which launched in September 2019, already sold-in nearly 8 million units worldwide and was honored with the award for “Best Multiplayer Game” at Gamescom.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)