Lionsgate and Gearbox Software LLC continue to be convinced they can make the Borderlands franchise into a multimedia empire. Eli Roth’s movie adaptation of Borderlands has an August 2024 release date after falling into Development Hell. To remind everyone that this movie is indeed coming out and that Lionsgate and Gearbox really really really want you to watch it when it does, they have announced that the next Borderlands "experience" will be a promotional tie-in to the film and will borrow ideas and concepts from Black Mirror: Bandersnatch in a product titled "Borderlands EchoVision Live." As indicated in the press release, EchoVision Live will:

Borderlands EchoVision Live will tell the story of eight hapless tourists who think they’ve paid for an exhilarating but safe “adventure safari” on Eden-6, the home of weapons manufacturer Jakobs Corporation, as previously seen in Borderlands3. Naturally, it goes wrong, and the group ends up stranded in a town called Greywater Junction, surrounded by threats on all sides. Which of them will prevail and become future Vault Hunters?That’s up to you(plural) to decide.

Borderlands EchoVision Live will run on a platform developed by a company called Genvid Entertainment, which develops what it calls massively interactive live events, or MILEs. In these interactive narrative series, the entire viewership takes collective decisions to determine how the story will unfold, and experiences a “collective shared outcome,” in the words of the press release.

So, it's like Bandersnatch but with democracy! Genvid Entertainment's whole deal seems to be streaming series that have interactive elements as they announced this Borderlands project AND DC Heroes United at San Diego Comic Con 2023 at the same time. However, it's still another miraculous development in the giant money pit that continues to be the Borderlands movie which this year included the removal of Craig Mazin, a lead writer of The Last of Us TV series, from the production's writing credits AND Deadpool director, Tim Miller, stepping in to do reshoots for Eli Roth in what has been widely described to be a "salvage job."

This sounds like an awful idea, and I sincerely hope they follow through with it.

Can't wait for someone whose brains aren't being shit all over the pavement to buy the Borderlands IP and do something sane with it.

I don't know how most people felt, but I was surprised by how well TellTale Games made me feel like I was in the Borderlands universe with their Tales From the Borderlands title; and I bring that up because it foolishly made me think that Borderlands would more easily adapt to other mediums - but then I hear things like this and remember I'm a fallible human who is wrong.

I looked at Tales of the Borderlands and thought, "This works really well. Once."

I don't expect anything from the TV series. I wondered if there was much of a universe to plunder from but the latter games (i.e. anything that isn't 1) have royally laid some shit pipes.

Do normies really like the writing/world of Borderlands or something?

They’re fun games, but I just feel like all the Vault hunter lore and space corp stuff and Claptrap “jokes” are all completely forgettable boilerplate video game writing. It’s like the perfect Dan game, where you just make headshots and explosions happen, while the story is pretty much ignore-able background noise.

Just a truly bizarre video game franchise to make into any kind of film/TV project. Like I don’t even understand how you convince investors/studios to support you in this, unless they’re so oblivious that they think any game with high sales means there’s an appetite for multimedia expansion of the IP.

@bisonhero: There are complicated business reasons why these kinds of deals get done, often depending in part on who owns the IP and particular talents' interest in it.

I mean there are Rampage, Gran Turismo, and Need for Speed movies too, and none of those are properties that seem natural for cinema (unlike something like Hitman or Tomb Raider.)