2024 is one to forget for Lionsgate, but Borderlands stands out as the studio's biggest box office flop. Following a disastrous $9 million opening weekend, the movie concluded its month-long run at the box office with a dismal $31 million before limping on to Digital platforms.
With a production budget of $115 million and a $30 million marketing campaign - which saw fans of the hit series of games largely reject everything they were seeing - the studio has likely lost upwards of $114 million.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, Borderlands is one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year with a dire 10% score. According to the Critics Consensus, "Glitching out in every department, Borderlands is balderdash." Fans, on the other hand, awarded it a slightly better but still-Rotten 51%.
Roth is believed to have run into creative differences with the studio and was reportedly replaced by Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller for reshoots (regardless of how extensive those were, they did little to save Borderlands).
Talking to IndieWire (via GameFragger.com) about the Thanksgiving franchise, Roth only mentioned Borderlands in passing when he said, "That was a whole other story. Making that in COVID was like...I could write a book on that."
While the pandemic likely presented its fair share of challenges for all those involved, most fans were turned off by the changes this adaptation made to the hit video game franchise.
Earlier this year, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said, "Within our television Group, our unscripted business is feeling the effects of a continuing market correction. In our film group, the poor box office performance of Borderlands, coupled with softer-than-anticipated results for other releases in the quarter, reflected an environment with less margin for error than ever before."
He'd later explain that, "nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong: it sat on the shelf for too long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usual strict financial models. Several of our other releases in the quarter, though cushioned by financial models that worked as intended, didn’t live up to either our standards or our projections."
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, The Crow, Never Let Go, and Megalopolis likely all fall into that category.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis, Borderlands is based on the video game Borderlands created by Gearbox Software and published by 2K.
Eli Roth directed the movie from a screenplay he penned with Joe Crombie. However, it's been widely reported that he handed over directing duties to Deadpool helmer Tim Miller for the movie's reshoots.
Have you watched Borderlands? If so, do you think it's as bad as some believe?