Following the recent casting of Golden Globe nominee Edgar Ramirez as Atlas, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that professional bodybuilder Olivier Richters has been tapped to portray another villain character in Eli Roth’s upcoming film adaptation of Borderlands. The Dutch athlete-turned-actor is set to play the role of Krom, who is being described as the terrifying leader of the psycho bandits that rule Pandora. The character only appeared in the first installment of the Borderlands game, where he was voiced by Oliver Tull.
This marks Richter’s first major movie role as he is only set to have minor appearances in Marvel Studios’ Black Widow and 20th Century Studios’ The King’s Man, which are both expected to debut this year.
#DutchGiant #OlivierRichters #MuscleMeat pic.twitter.com/Nz4LBLiL2K
— The Dutch Giant (@OlivierRichters) April 9, 2020
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Based on the bestselling PC and console gaming franchise from developer Gearbox Software and publisher 2K Games, the movie will center around a group called Vault Hunters led by Lilith and Roland. Lionsgate recently released the film’s official synopsis, centering around unlikely heroes recruited for a retrieval mission. Character details including Cate Blanchett’s Lilith and Kevin Hart’s Roland are also teased in the synopsis.
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 features a star-studded ensemble including 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 and Haley Bennett in an unknown new role for the series.
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Borderlands will be directed by Eli Roth from a script written by Craig Mazin. Avi Arad and Ari Arad are producing 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 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.
