This week, the Borderlands movie hits theaters, and the reviews haven’t been kind. On top of that, the PG-13 film is up against Marvel’s R-rated blockbusters Deadpool and Wolverine, and looks set to pull off another win in its third week. But there’s a much darker version of Borderlands that you might not be able to see, as it was originally intended to be R-rated.
Borderlands stunt coordinator Jimmy O’Dea told ScreenRant that the film features a lot of gory violence, including decapitations and dismemberments, but none of it made it into the final film.
“We were doing an R-rated movie at the time,” Oddi recalled. “So, we were blowing people’s heads off. And we were cutting off feet. We were doing all that. But, you know, a lot of it happened. We shot it almost three years ago, or we just finished it. So, I think a lot of it happens in post, and they figure out where it’s going to go, what market it’s going to be aimed at. But literally the idea and the brief was a massacre… We’d do it and clean it up in post.”
Deadpool director Tim Miller was in charge of the reshoots, but according to Audie, the film’s original director Eli Roth preferred a more intense scene.
“Ellie loves horror,” Odie said. “He loves horror. The funny thing is, he was in the second unit and he came in and he was like, ‘Well… just cut off the ankle. Yeah, take a knife and cut off the ankle. I’ll leave these pieces.’ Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough blood for him. Ellie was really into that kind of stuff. It was really great to work with him. I really enjoyed spending time with him.”
If an R-rated Borderlands exists in a finished or nearly finished form, it could potentially be released on Blu-ray or in 4K. But if the film flops this weekend, there won’t be a huge demand to see more versions of it.
Borderlands is currently playing in theaters.
