Following a worldwide casting search, 13-year-old Ariana Greenblatt, who played young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, has been cast as Tiny Tina in the Borderlands movie from director Eli Roth.
Lionsgate is lining up an all-star cast for the big-budget video game adaptation, which will star two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the game's legendary thief, Lilith. Elsewhere, Kevin Hart will play super soldier Roland and his Jumanji co-star Jack Black will voice the sarcastic robot Claptrap, while Jamie Lee Curtis will play the archeologist Tannis.
Tiny Tina is a teenage explosives expert whose parents were sold to Hyperion to be used as guinea pigs for some genetic experiments that resulted in their deaths. Once free of Hyperion's considerable reach, she vowed to get revenge on Flesh-Stick, the man who sold her family. The character was first introduced in the Borderlands 2 game before going on to appear in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 3.
Roth is directing the Borderlands movie from a script by Craig Mazin (Chernobyl), while Avi Arad and Ari Arad are producing via their Arad Productions banner along with Erik Feig of Picturestart. Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford will executive produce the film with Strauss Zelnick of Take-Two Interactive.
"Ariana is a spectacular new talent in cinema. 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 onscreen like one of Tina’s grenades," Roth said in a statement.
Since playing the younger version of Zoe Saldana's character in Avengers: Infinity War, Greenblatt has lined up one big movie after another. The young actress just wrapped Sony's sci-fi thriller 65, which pairs her with Adam Driver, and she'll soon be seen in Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights movie, as well as Gina Rodriguez's latest Netflix film Awake.
Greenblatt previously starred alongside Dylan O'Brien in Paramount's Love and Monsters, in addition to appearances in A Bad Moms Christmas and Disney's The One and Only Ivan. She also voiced characters in WB’s Scoob! and DreamWorks Animation's The Boss Baby: Family Business. She's represented by Paradigm and Mosaic.