Edgar Ramirez has joined the all-star cast of the upcoming film adaption of one of the world’s most popular video games franchises Borderlands.

Ramirez will play Atlas, a weapons manufacturing business titan and is regarded as the universe’s most powerful person. Among the cast of impressive talent alongside Ramirez include Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Jamie Lee Curtis. Borderlands will be directed by Eli Roth and written by two-time Emmy-winning screenwriter Craig Mazin.

Among his diverse acting resume, Ramirez is known for his roles in the 2015 remake of Point Break, Gold, and The Undoing. He gained critical acclaim for his portrayal of the iconic fashion designer Gianni Versace in the mini-series American Crime Story. He also recently starred opposite Jennifer Garner in Miguel Arteta’s Yes Day.

“What an incredible honor to have an actor of Edgar’s caliber, talent, and charisma playing opposite Cate Blanchett and this remarkable cast,” Roth shared with Deadline in a statement. “Atlas has to be a truly magnetic personality, someone with charisma and charm but that air of menace underneath it all. I’ve been a fan of Edgar’s since his early performances, and he continues to amaze me with each dramatic turn. We want to create something wild, fun, and very different from anything they’ve seen from Edgar before. I am so, so excited to work with him.”

Part of this highly talented cast is the young up-and-coming talent Ariana Greenblatt. Greenblatt is best known for her role in the Disney TV series Stuck in the Middle from 2016-2018. Among her film credits include Avengers: Infinity War and the upcoming musical In the Heights.

“Ariana is a spectacular new talent in cinema,” Roth also shared in a previous statement with Deadline. “She has already worked with many of my close collaborators, and everyone raves about her. She blew us all away in her audition, and I cannot wait to see her bring the wild, insane and unpredictable Tiny Tina to the big screen. She’s going to blow up on screen like one of Tina’s grenades.”

Lionsgate’s synopsis for Borderlands reads as follows:

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 (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Black), a persistent 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 franchise is an action shooter video game with four main games and several expansions. It has internationally sold over 68 million units. The franchise is available for gaming consuls and PCs as a single-player or multiplayer. As a “Vault Hunter,” your goal within Borderlands is to plow your way through an array of enemies as you collect unique weapons to reach a highly prized Vault. Its biggest appeal is the wildly flamboyant characters, from enemies to unlikely allies.

Borderlands started filming on April 1, 2021, in Budapest, Hungary. Lionsgate has announced no official release date.

The post Edgar Ramirez Joins Cast of Lionsgate’s ‘Borderlands’ first appeared on .

By Justina Bonilla

Gigi Saul Guerrero is making a name for herself as director and writer in horror, breaking new ground.

Saul Guerrero, originally from Mexico City, Mexico, immigrated to Canada where she earned a B.A. at Capilano University in Motion Picture Production. She co-founded the independent production company, Luchagore. Since launching Luchagore, she has directed and co-written several shorts, including El Gigante and the Crypt TV shorts, A Luchagore Christmas, and Mistress of Bones. She has also directed for Blumhouse Television, most notably, the episode Culture Shock for the Into the Dark series and the upcoming film Bingo.

In our exclusive interview with Saul Guerrero, she shares her creative influences, her path to her directorial career, current projects, and future hopes for her career.

Justina Bonilla: What filmmakers and films have influenced you and your style?

Gigi Saul Guerrero: It really did start with Children of Men. When I looked more into [Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Children of Men], I saw that he was part of the “Three Amigos.” Form there I discovered Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu and Guillermo Del Toro.

It really was a mix of those three guys. Everything that these guys were making, they were not afraid to just go over the boundaries, in showing really raw and gritty, but human stories. It has the love of monsters that Guillermo would be that were so human and so real. And then, it had Iñárritu’s grittiness and brutality, like he brought in Amores Perros. These guys are not afraid to speak our language.

Because of [them] I found out about [Robert] Rodriguez, who’s total Tex-Mex style, and I really related to [it]. I couldn’t really figure myself here out in Canada. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to adapt quickly. I wanted to learn English right away. I was trying so hard to be something. But I realized that it’s okay to be two different things. It’s okay to have your past culture and bring it to a new one. And Rodriguez would do that [with] his crazy movies, with El Mariachi, Machete, Planet Terror. He always had those hints of Mexicano style, and I thought that was so neat.  

From there, I just got deep into the horror world, because of Rob Zombie with The Devil’s Rejects. I had never seen a movie so dirty. I had never seen a movie so raw and to the point where you could smell what was on the screen.

JB: Speaking of the horror genre, what are your favorite sub genres?

GSG: I’ve gone through phases. Suddenly I’m all about slashers. Suddenly I’m all about cult classics, and 80s horror, or trash horror. I go through it all. At the end of the day, I guess what really changed my mind that the subgenre doesn’t really matter, is because of Jordan Peele’s work. I never thought I would gravitate so much towards socially elevated horror like that, since Get Out.

JB: What inspired you to create your production company Luchagore?

GSG: It really all started with my best friend, who is my cinematographer in all of the stuff I’ve directed, Luke Bramley. Luke and I were the only horror freaks in our school. All of our homework was based on horror.

For one of our bigger projects, not having enough people in our crew, we became the troublemakers of the school, [because] we were bringing students in from the rival [Vancouver] film school, into our project. One of the crew members from the other school, Raynor Shima [Luchagore producer], was obsessed [with horror].

We realized, “Well, no one wants to work on [horror projects] but us three. Let’s make a bunch of videos [together].” Self-funded, just no budget. [With] the tiniest DLSR camera. Just making viral videos. Making cool content.

JB: Why do you think Mexican culture works so well with horror?

GSG: At the end of the day, I think [Mexican] culture is so rich and historic. We’re [also] very spiritual people. We celebrate death. We are not afraid of it. We cherish it. We embrace it. And we just see all these dark stories, legends, traditions, we see them in a different light.

JB: How did you become involved with Crypt TV?

GSG: I was still in film school when we met in L.A. Very Kindly, my work [El Gigante] was shown to Eli Roth, who co-founded Crypt TV. And Eli [noted], “Your work is really cool. Luchagore is super cool. We’re starting a new [project] Crypt TV, let me connect you.” We were one of the first [filmmakers] to work with them.

Since then, we’ve grown up together. So, it’s nice that after a few years of doing our own things, we came back together [last] year to make something together, Mistress of Bones.

JB: What inspired Mistress of Bones to focus on Aztec culture?

GSG: Aztec mythology has a lot of layers. A lot to say.

It was a mix of [wanting] a Latina hero. And our writer Shane McKenzie [asking], “What about the background of how Day of the Dead started, [emphasizing] the goddess Mictecacihuatl?” Mistress of Bones is a perfect opportunity to bring the mythology to light. But, the dark mythology, the underworld stuff that we don’t talk about very often.

JB: Would you like to see Mistress of Bones become a series on Crypt TV?

GSG: I would hope so. That’s Luchagore’s next goal. We wanted to make Mistress of Bones not just a standalone short, full of action and a new heroine. It was a cool challenge to be like, “How can we shoot this that it still makes sense on its own? But you can see that there’s a lot going on that we’re not showing.” Hopefully, Crypt TV and Luchagore can make it a bigger thing.

JB: What lead you to direct projects at Blumhouse Television?

GSG: I love Blumhouse, who are the pillar of the horror community. They want to tell new [and] fresh stories. Blumhouse had seen El Gigante and a few of my shorts. So, they gave me a chance of Culture Shock. And Culture Shock really blew up in the best way possible. It spoke a lot about a very important issue, with the border crisis, and what’s going on, unfortunately. The movie still stands at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. Blumhouse and I really wanted to tell a very important message. It’s very cool that Blumhouse is taking a chance again on Luchagore [with Bingo].

JB: What are you most excited about for your upcoming Blumhouse Television series film Bingo?

GSG: I can’t wait to share this film with the world. So proud of what we were able to achieve during the pandemic. Filmmaking is a lot harder now, but we followed safety protocols and gave it our best every single day during the making of this film. [I’m] incredibly excited to share a unique story where audiences are going to connect with new heroes. Plus, heroes we haven’t seen kick-ass in a genre film before!! These seniors fight back for their beloved bingo hall and it makes my heart swell of joy!

The post Exclusive: Director Gigi Saul Guerrero Talks Mexican Culture in Horror first appeared on .

By Justina Bonilla

Five years after its initial release, Knock Knock, which stars Hollywood royalty Keanu Reeves and, at the time, relative newcomers Ana de Armas and Lorenza Izzo, has gained a resurgence in popularity thanks to Netflix.

Netflix released Knock Knock on October 28 and immediately it shot up to the #2 spot on its top ten list of films trending in the United States. Director Eli Roth reacted to this on his Instagram with an ecstatic, “This is incredible.” Adding, “Out of nowhere. Thank you everyone for watching.”

Knock Knock is an erotic home invasion horror/thriller filmed in 2015 in Chile. It’s Roth’s third writing collaboration with Uruguayan director/producer/writer Guillermo Amoedo. Their first two other films include Aftershock and The Green Inferno. Two of the actor who appeared in these films Aaron Burns (The Green Inferno) and Ignacia Allamand (The Green Inferno, Aftershock) were tapped to also star in Knock Knock at the time.

In this psychological thriller we meet Evan (Keanu Reeves), a dedicated middle-aged father who loves his wife and two young children, but is dissatisfied with his current situation. One rainy night, while his family is away for the weekend, two wet and lost young women, de Armas and Izzo, show up at his front door asking for directions. Evan opens his home to them with good intentions only to eventually fall for their charms and have a lapse in judgement. In the morning the women refuse to leave, proceeding to drag Evan into hell on Earth.

The style of horror seen in Knock Knock was the first major cinematic departure Roth had taken from his signature style of vivid gore and graphic violence known as “torture porn.” Knock Knock instead emphasized psychological horror, through the torturing of Evan by the two young women, with a dose of physical violence.

This film was a remake of the 1977 film Death Game (also known as The Seducers), which starred Colleen Camp and Sondra Locke, who were also producers on Knock Knock.

Knock Knock was de Armas’ first cross-over into English-language film and her introduction to U. S. audiences. Prior to this de Armas, who was born in Cuba, had mainly worked in films and television in Spain. Once she caught the attention of Hollywood, de Armas landed a plum role in Blade Runner 2049. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in her follow-up film Knives Out (2019), where she starred alongside Daniel Craig. She then went on to once again star alongside Craig when she was cast as “Bond Girl” Paloma in No Time to Die. Her biggest role to date will be playing the title role of Norma Jean AKA Marilyn Monroe in the upcoming film Blonde which is being produced by Brad Pitts’ production company, Plan B.

Chilean actress Izzo began her acting career in two popular Chilean romantic comedies. Her first English speaking role was in Aftershock. She later worked in the films Green Inferno and the Oscar-winning Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as well as on television in the Showtime limited series Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

A unique suspenseful horror film, Knock Knock explores the diversity of modern Latin horror cinema.

With Knock Knock adding to Netflix’s roster and Latino themed films, domestic and international, it only broadens their major international influence for promoting Latino content and talent.

The post ‘Knock Knock’ Re-release Surges in Popularity on Netflix first appeared on .