Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie looks like it is not getting out of post-production hell anytime soon. One writer doesn’t seem to want his name associated with the movie and had his name removed from the credits.
Craig Mazin, best known for his work as co-writer and co-creator for HBO’s The Last of Us, has reportedly had his name removed from the writing credits in the upcoming Borderlands movie. Instead, Mazin uses the pseudonym “Joe Crombie” in the screenplay credits for the live-action adaptation of the Gearbox Software and 2K video game.
According to the WGA database, the Borderlands screenplay is credited to Eli Roth and Joe Crombie. However, Mazin wrote the draft for the movie in 2020, after winning an Emmy for HBO’s Chernobyl.
It is unclear why Mazin opted to use a pseudonym for the upcoming movie adaptation. Typically, directors and writers use an alias when they do not want to be associated with a project.
Seven other writers are credited for providing “additional literary material (not on-screen)”. Aaron Berg and Chris Bremner (Bad Boys for Life) and Sam Levinson (HBO’s The Idol) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train) and Tony Rettenmaier (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Juel Taylor (They Cloned Tyrone) and Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat) have writing credits for the film based on the WGA database.
The WGA screen credits manual reads, “When credit is accorded to a team of writers, an ampersand (&) shall be used between the writers’ names in the credit to denote a writing team. Use of the word ‘and’ between writers’ names in a credit indicates that the writers did their work separately, one usually rewriting the other.”
The post-production for Borderlands has been a mess. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller reportedly took over two weeks of reshoots for the movie in January as Roth was working on Thanksgiving. The reshoots and the army of writers do not bode well for the live-action adaptation.
Cate Blanchett stars as Lilith in Borderlands with an ensemble cast featuring Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Bobby Lee, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Filming for the movie was reportedly completed in June 2021.
Ari and Avi Arad, and Erik Feig, under their Arad Productions and Picturestart serve as executive producers of the film with Lionsgate Films securing distribution rights.
At the moment, there’s still no official release date for Borderlands, but test screenings were reportedly held last November. It’s safe to say that test audiences walked out of that one left with a taste in their mouths. Otherwise, we’d have heard more about The Borderlands film by now.
If a post-apocalyptic video game adaptation is up to your speed, you don’t have to worry at all. While Borderlands is still MIA, Peacock’s Twisted Metal will premiere on July 27. After taking a look at the latest trailer, fans are sold that it will deliver the same campy vibe that the video game franchise is known for.
