The Borderlands Movie Was Inspired By Eli Roth Watching His Dog Poop

Horror director Eli Roth might be known as a purveyor of torture porn movies like "Hostel" and "Cabin Fever," but he has a soft side when it comes to animals. Speaking to Total Film about his holiday slasher "Thanksgiving," he confessed to having a problem with movies where a murder victim has a pet. "I can't enjoy the movie until I know someone's gonna feed that pet. Even though I know it's a story, I know it's not real. I'm like, but what about the cat?"

Roth has a pet of his own — a French bulldog — who gave him the inspiration he needed when pitching a "Borderlands" movie to Lionsgate. "Whenever I take her for a walk and she has to go to the bathroom, she won't let me look at her," Roth explains in the latest issue of SFX magazine. "I have to look away because she gets really shy. But one day I filmed her. She had that shy look on her face and I was like, 'That's Claptrap.'"

Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black in the movie) is a clunky one-wheeled robot with a bubbly personality and yellow paint that makes him a convenient target for bored bandits on the rough-and-tumble planet of Pandora. After learning that Claptrap can be shot hundreds of times without dying, Roth considered the logistics of this and sold his movie to the studio execs with a scene where Claptrap has to expel the spent bullets from his rear with the shameful demeanor of a pooping Frenchie. "That was my pitch to Lionsgate. They were laughing so hard."

"Borderlands" has had a long road to the big screen, having first been announced back in 2015. Seven screenwriters are credited for additional literary materials (i.e. previous drafts), and the final filmed screenplay credited to Roth and a mysterious co-writer called Joe Crombie, who has no other credits. It was speculated that this was a pseudonym for "Chernobyl" creator Craig Mazin, who was attached to the project at one point. but Mazin himself has denied this.

The version of "Borderlands" that ultimately got the green light has a scene where Claptrap acts as a decoy and gets pumped full of lead. To nail down the logistics of this, Roth turned to Randy Pitchford, CEO of the videos games' developer Gearbox Software. "So what happens to the bullets?" Roth recalls asking him. "Randy goes, 'I don't know.' I go, 'Could he s**t out the bullets, like we're in a Mel Brooks movie?' He goes, 'Yes, he could.' And I felt we needed to see that."

Apparently assuming that the Claptrap-pooping-bullets scene would be a clincher for audiences as well, Lionsgate placed it as the comedic post-title stinger at the end of the trailer for "Borderlands." The response to it has been decidedly mixed, with some arguing it's in line with the toilet humor of the games, and others saying it's simply not funny and goes on far too long. But as far as Roth is concerned, that scene is everything:

"This is the movie where the robot gets shot, has to expel the bullets, and you're just watching our hero Cate Blanchett going, 'Is this really happening? I thought I was an action hero and he just hijacked my movie?' The absurdity of that. Then having Jack [Black] milking that gag, that was the movie to me"

"Borderlands" hits theaters on August 8, 2024.