‘Borderlands’: Why Aren’t Brick and Mordecai in the Movie?

The trailer for the upcoming ‘Borderlands’ movie was released today and there are a lot of impressions. Some fans are excited, some are disgruntled, the usual. But, just like any other trailer, it raised more questions than it answered and one of the most common questions currently is, why aren’t Brick and Mordecai in the trailer? Will they show up in the movie at all?

Brick and Mordecai are not on the cast list

Leigh Whannell was initially in talks to write and direct a movie adaptation of Borderlands with Lionsgate Films in May 2015. The project was officially announced in August 2015 with producers Ari and Avi Arad, but Whannell’s involvement was not mentioned. Aaron Berg was hired to write an R-rated version of the script in April 2016, but by June 2018, Oren Uziel took over writing duties.

In February 2020, Eli Roth was set to direct the film, with Craig Mazin writing the screenplay and Erik Feig producing. Cate Blanchett was cast as Lilith in May 2020, followed by Kevin Hart as Roland in January 2021. Jamie Lee Curtis was announced as Dr. Patricia Tannis, and Jack Black would voice Claptrap in February.

Ariana Greenblatt and Florian Munteanu joined as Tiny Tina and Krieg respectively the next month, along with Haley Bennett in an undisclosed role. In April, Édgar Ramírez, Olivier Richters, and Janina Gavankar were added to the cast, along with others. Mazin’s script was rewritten by Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, and then again by Roth. Penn Jillette revealed in May that he would appear in a small role as a preacher.

Many fans noticed after the initial cast announced that Mordecai and Brick are missing which quite frankly shocked them since they are among the main characters from the games, the issue continues now that the trailer has been released and there is an obvious lack of the two most iconic characters. So what happened?

‘Borderlines’ movie is not set in the same universe as the games

Many fans hoped that the movie would continue the established canon and the events of the game, but Randy Pitchford confirmed back in 2021 when the initial complaints went viral that this won’t be the case. Apparently, despite the games existing as an established and well-known medium, the movie’s development wanted to tell new stories and allow for some creative freedoms. I mean good for them but they do realize that the games are the only reason why fans are interested in the movies? Having creative freedom is fine, but the best part of the video-game adaptations are the characters we used to play brought to life.

Randy also added that they will stay authentic to the characters, tone, and style, something that the first glimpse of the movie actually did kind of deliver on, but still, you don’t stay authentic to the characters by cutting them off.

Some fans in the comments noticed that this reads like something you would say when you expect the movie to be crap so you can distance your games from it.

In any case, to answer the question, Mordecai and Brick are not in the movie because they apparently don’t exist in that universe and most likely won’t exist. Since the movie is not a part of the same continuity it was to be expected that not all characters would make the cut, it’s only disappointing that two major characters didn’t make it however.

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