Borderlands 3 Almost Starred Danny DeVito

Believe it or not, famed actor Danny DeVito nearly played a role in Gearbox Software's 2019 release Borderlands 3. Although the collaboration between Gearbox and DeVito never ended up working out, the actor himself was said to have expressed interest in playing a role in the game after meeting up with the studio's president Randy Pitchford. 

In a recent thread on Twitter, Pitchford himself was the one who revealed that DeVito almost played a character within the world of Borderlands 3. Pitchford said that around five years ago, he was invited to visit the set of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is the sitcom that DeVito has long starred in. While visiting, Pitchford said that he began talking to DeVito and the two ended up "talking shop" in the actor's trailer. "We talked about entertainment and video games and he said he would love to do a character in one of our games," Pitchford said. At the time, Borderlands 3 happened to be the title in which Gearbox was developing. 

I got introduced to Danny DeVito during my time there and we went back to his trailer and were talking shop by his trailer between shots. We talked about entertainment and videogames and he said he would love to do a character in one of our games.

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) September 13, 2021

Pitchford went on to say that he ended up coming up with a concept for a character called Typhon, which was meant to be the first Vault Hunter within the world of Borderlands. As the character was developed, DeVito was in Pitchford's mind the entire time to end up playing Typhon in the future. However, once table reads began, Pitchford explained that Gearbox developer Mike Cosner began reading for Typhon and essentially nailed the role. Pitchford still ended up reaching out to DeVito's team about starring in the game, but he says that scheduling conflicts made the process of getting the actor involved a bit hard. This combined with the fact that Cosner was doing such a great job led to Pitchford saying that he "just sort of let DeVito go."

While it's interesting to hear about this backstory involving DeVito and Gearbox, I imagine that many fans are surely thrilled with the performance that Cosner gave to Typhon in Borderlands 3 as it is. Even though adding someone like DeVito to the game's cast surely would have been a big deal, it's not as though his lack of involvement made the game any worse. And if nothing else, maybe Gearbox and DeVito can find a way to work together on another game in the future.