BORDERLANDS Movie Flopped Because Of COVID And Zoom Meetings, According To Filmmaker Eli Roth

BORDERLANDS Movie Flopped Because Of COVID And Zoom Meetings, According To Filmmaker Eli Roth

The Borderlands movie opened to negative reviews and grossed only $33 million by the end of its run. Now, filmmaker Eli Roth has shared his take on what went wrong with the video game adaptation...

By JoshWilding - Apr 14, 2025 03:04 PM EST
Filed Under: Video Games
Source: GameFragger.com

2024 wasn't a great year for Lionsgate, but Borderlands stood out as the studio's biggest box office flop. Following a disastrous $9 million opening weekend, the movie ended its month-long run at the box office with a mere $33 million worldwide.

With a production budget of $115 million and a $30 million marketing campaign - which saw fans of the games largely reject everything they were seeing - the studio lost upwards of $100 million. 

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer previously said, "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."

Borderlands director Eli Roth reflected on the movie while speaking to The Town (via GameFraggercom) and argued that COVID-19 and Zoom meetings were the main issue. He also pointed to the reshoots he was unable to helm after moving on to Thanksgiving (Deadpool director Tim Miller reportedly stepped in to take charge of those),

"[I] was doing Thanksgiving, and it's also the kind of thing we're like, 'Wow, this is the first time I'm going to see a movie sort of being like, OK, I directed this, what happens?'" he said. "That was kind of an experience like, never had that before."

"And I remember being... Am I at the point of my career where I'm going to sit down to watch my own movie that says I wrote and directed it, and I really genuinely don't know what's going to happen?" Roth added. 

"I think none of us, none of us anticipated how complicated things were gonna be with COVID. Not just in terms of what we're shooting, but then you have to do pick-up shots or reshoots and you have six people that are all on different sets and every one of those sets is getting shut down because the cities have opened up, and now there's a COVID outbreak."

"We couldn't prep in a room together, I couldn't be with my stunt people, I couldn't do pre-vis, everyone's spread all over the place," Roth continued, "You can't prep a movie on that scale over Zoom and I think we all thought we could pull it off and we got our asses handed to us a bit."

These are all valid reasons, and it must have been challenging for Roth to hand the movie over to Miller and not know what was waiting for him in post-production. However, despite these issues, there were fundamental issues with the script that largely missed the point of the games it was adapting.

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.

Over on Rotten Tomatoes, Borderlands is one of the worst-reviewed video game movies ever, 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 49%.

The Borderlands 4 video game will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, on September 23.

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ModHaterSLADE
ModHaterSLADE - 4/14/2025, 3:23 PM
LOL! Nope! It flopped because it was a half-assed take on Guardians of the Galaxy that wasn't worth paying to see in theatres.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 4/14/2025, 3:29 PM
@ModHaterSLADE - These IP franchises are the real pandemic.
ModHaterSLADE
ModHaterSLADE - 4/14/2025, 4:36 PM
@UncleHarm1 - TRUE
captainwalker
captainwalker - 4/14/2025, 6:08 PM
@UncleHarm1 - Mickey 17 was trash too.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 4/14/2025, 7:21 PM
@captainwalker - I gotta disagree on that one. I think Bong Joon Ho is a little up his own ass sometimes but Mickey 17 was just a fun, goofy scifi flick with some good performances. Not like an Oscar contender but I enjoyed it a lot.

Also it's an original concept, which is the exact thing I was lamenting the lack of with my original comment.
Luigi
Luigi - 4/14/2025, 3:23 PM
This movie was unpleasant.
Kozmik
Kozmik - 4/14/2025, 3:25 PM
If Eli Roth were a director known for making great movies I could buy his reasons as for why 'Borderlands' tanked.

Though since he isn't – and while I don't think everything that Roth says should be discounted – I have a feeling that if everything had went exactly as he wanted it still wouldn't have been a great movie.

Because he's still Eli Roth.

Take that how you will.
Nomis929
Nomis929 - 4/14/2025, 3:27 PM
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thebamf
thebamf - 4/14/2025, 3:32 PM
Hahaha this movie flopped because it wasn't good.
Keja
Keja - 4/14/2025, 3:34 PM
So it had nothing to do with the fact you’re an overrated director and the movie was a water down version of GOTG? Or maybe it’s the fact you keep putting yourself in your own bad movies that people lose interest.
AnEye
AnEye - 4/14/2025, 3:35 PM
Lol yeah it wasn't YOU or "JOE CROMBIE" aka Craig Mazin who made a mess of this film....it was just all TIMING

SURE JAN!
NodrickStripson
NodrickStripson - 4/14/2025, 3:37 PM
Right… Blame everybody else, Eli.

Obviously it’s got absolutely nothing to do with him being a complete talent-vacuum.
JacobsLadder
JacobsLadder - 4/14/2025, 3:41 PM
Or......
Reginator
Reginator - 4/14/2025, 3:43 PM
or poor casting and crap story?
harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 4/14/2025, 3:45 PM
hes right, they should re release it.
thedrudo
thedrudo - 4/14/2025, 4:08 PM
Sure, Eli, sure.
SpiderBrad
SpiderBrad - 4/14/2025, 4:31 PM
in one scene they're opening up a manhole - and you can see the crew members helping lift it - not even edited out!?!
DocSpock
DocSpock - 4/14/2025, 5:21 PM

So it’s not because it was a sh!tty and had Kevin Fart in it?

KennKathleen
KennKathleen - 4/14/2025, 5:30 PM
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BritishMonkey
BritishMonkey - 4/14/2025, 5:59 PM
The logistics certainly didn't help.
But it was still a shit idea from conception and casting.
ANewPope
ANewPope - 4/14/2025, 6:22 PM
I think it's funny that it went for a pg-13 rating instead of r-rated like the games when Deadpool & Wolverine became the highest-grossing r-rated movie ever.
That could've at least been ONE saving factor.
asherman93
asherman93 - 4/14/2025, 9:52 PM
@ANewPope - To be fair, Roth filmed this with an R-rating in mind.

The toning down to PG-13 wasn’t his fault
THEKENDOMAN
THEKENDOMAN - 4/14/2025, 6:24 PM
Eli, you're an ok filmmaker.

I still feel you are growing and have yet to reach your full potential but I guess that comes with growth and experience.

On that note, I need to tell you….

Borderlands was [frick]ing shit, it was bad mate, how you got Cate to do that movie is beyond me, she was so out of [frick]ing place. Like a full English without eggs… missing.

Kevin nowadays trying to force down our [frick]ing throats that he can do action, is just not the case Kev, you can't mate, stick to [frick]ing comedy because it just doesn't look realistic.

Ariana, you played the most annoying character in the movie, either your [frick]ing very good at playing it or Eli just let you be you, either way, I couldn't stand you.

Jamie, I know your old, so work is hard to come by so ill [frick]ing let you off on this one.

The same goes for you Florian, I know you're still finding your [frick]ing feet in Hollywood so these mishaps are bound to be part of your path to success.

Edgar, I honestly dont know what the [frick] is going on in your career mate, but it seems work is hard to find, get a [frick]ing new agent, you do so much better.

Eli, it has nothing to [frick]ing do with the reasons you're giving us, the movie was [frick]ing shit, bollocks, a bowl of Malarkey.

So own it and accept you made a crock of shit of a movie and learn and give us something better.

For [frick]s Sake



RacialPowerman
RacialPowerman - 4/14/2025, 9:36 PM
Why cant people just say "we screwed up and made a bad movie"...directors and actors always gotta pull a million excuses " The movie didn't work because when the snow melted from the ice age it caused a depression in the earth and now the movie didn't make money. Everything else was perfect, if wasn't for that damn ice age frost melt.
TrollHunterTNT
TrollHunterTNT - 4/14/2025, 10:55 PM
This is the equivalent of everyone buying a pizza and agreeing it's the worst pizza they've ever eaten; only to have the pizza maker screams it was going to be a great pizza but he had to use old, stale flour because of shipping issues, the oven wasn't working properly so he had to use a blowtorch; and a robot vacuum cleaner actually made the pizza cause all the workers had Covid and didn't come to work.

Here's an idea dude. Instead of trying to BS me, just close up shop and don't sell me your horrible pizza.
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 4/15/2025, 3:23 AM
I think it might mostly be due to there being not target audience and the overal quality being bland. It being chopped up due to external factors makes sense though.
BlackStar25
BlackStar25 - 4/15/2025, 8:56 AM
It flopped because it was ASS! Even the trailers were bad
dragon316
dragon316 - 4/15/2025, 9:04 AM
It was fun watch never played games can’t do honest comparison to movie blaming Covid again is excuse movies do good if movie is good regardless what rotten tomatoes critics say about movie
JabbaTheSus
JabbaTheSus - 4/15/2025, 9:57 AM
Or it was just a really, REALLY bad movie. My wife is a diehard for the whole franchise (I only played the first game). I have never seen her SO mad/annoyed/disappointed in a movie, in the entire 10 years we've been together.

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