Why Borderlands Bombed At The Box Office

Eli Roth's "Borderlands" movie is finally out, and, sadly, it wasn't worth the wait. There's little upside here for video game fans or anxious studio execs, both of whom have watched in anticipation as the film languished in development hell for over a decade. And, though the intervening years have seen the concept of video game adaptations elevated through such projects as the Emmy Award-winning show "The Last of Us" and the colorful, financially successful film adaptations of "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Super Mario Bros.," the writing has been on the wall since the first "Borderlands" trailer dropped and fans didn't hold back in their assessments.

After the trailer backlash, the first wave of reactions to "Borderlands" surprised no one, with the vast majority being highly negative. We saw the film ourselves, and — like most other outlets — came to the conclusion that it was a boring slog through the wasteland. Dismal reviews across the board have further hampered a movie so bogged down by eleventh-hour changes and deviations from the source material that not even a cast including Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Jamie Lee Curtis could save it. But what went wrong, exactly? Here's why the "Borderlands" film bombed so hard at the box office.

As of this writing, "Borderlands" has made only $8.8 million in the U.S., landing a dismal opening at fourth place at the domestic box office. Internationally, it's even worse — it scooped just $7.7 million overseas for a worldwide total debut of $16.5 million. This is an absolute disaster for a film that not only took 10-plus years to make and features some (albeit miscast) A-list talent, but had a reported budget of approximately $145 million ($115 for production plus $30 million for distribution and marketing). A colorful action comedy based on a popular IP probably seemed like a slam dunk for Lionsgate in the current climate of video game adaptations. To make matters worse, this isn't the only flop that company has distributed in 2024.

The Bill Skarsgård-led actioner "Boy Kills World" only made about $3.2 million worldwide against an underreported budget thought to be in the region of $18 million, moot considering this haul would be troubling even with a high end seven-figure budget. Guy Ritchie's $60 million WWII-set spy flick "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" made just $27 million, a disappointing haul given some of the names involved: Henry Cavill leads a cast that includes Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding and Alex Pettyfer. Of course, these numbers pale in comparison to the ones posted by "Borderlands," which is on course to be the biggest flop of the year, not just for Lionsgate, but in all of Hollywood.

Opening in fourth place at the domestic box office, "Borderlands" was defeated by both "Deadpool & Wolverine" and — somewhat surprisingly — Lee Isaac Chung's "Twisters." Though the legacy sequel starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos was a breakout hit when it first debuted in July, its staying power is nonetheless very impressive, a sign that audiences are craving blockbusters that don't involve superheroes.

As of this writing, "Twisters" has made over $310 million worldwide and occupies a spot in the top five highest-grossing films of the year domestically. As we predicted in a previous article detailing why "Twisters" blew everyone away at the box office, it's likely the film's distinct tone and PG-13 rating allowed it to maintain an audience even as the relentlessly marketed and highly anticipated "Deadpool & Wolverine" began dominating theaters a week later.

Speaking of the Marvel feature, it would have been unfair to expect "Borderlands" to outperform the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman double header, which has passed the $1 billion benchmark (Marvel's first billion-dollar film since 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home"). But "Borderlands" not only failed to become the secondary blockbuster to the unstoppable "Deadpool" sequel, it made a fraction of what "Twisters" did, despite the two films having similar budgets.

In addition to getting trounced by "Twisters" and "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Borderlands" didn't even come close to touching "It Ends With Us," an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel of the same name that has so far grossed more than $80 million worldwide against a reported budget of $25 million. At first glance, the success of "Borderlands" shouldn't have been impacted by a film seemingly targeting a very different audience and boasting a far less star-studded cast. However, a film like "Borderlands," which — in our opinion, at least — has very little to offer even its own target audience, would have only stood a chance at box office success with a completely clear runway.

Perhaps Lionsgate felt that enough time would have passed for them to take the wind out of "Twisters." If so, this was a deadly miscalculation that also underestimated the potential of "It Ends With Us." In fairness, execs likely didn't predict star Blake Lively pre-empting the release with a headline-making cameo in "Deadpool & Wolverine," and the further promotional boost she received from husband Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman: On top of attending the film's premiere, both Reynolds and Jackman conducted hilarious interviews with Lively's co-star and on-screen love interest Brandon Sklenar. However, they could (and should) have anticipated the breadth of the book's fanbase, which seemingly left almost no theatrical stragglers for "Borderlands" to entice.

"Borderlands" needed to have virtually no competition to succeed, because, to put it bluntly, it didn't have the critical buzz it needed to attract viewers. As of this writing, it holds a damning score of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, making the film one of the few releases this year to debut with a percent in the single digits. Among the aggregator site's Top Critics, 0% gave the film a Fresh rating. On Metacritic, "Borderlands" holds a more qualitative score of 27 of out 100, with the site deeming the reviews "generally unfavorable."

Why did "Borderlands" do so bad in reviews? "It's not a movie for critics, as the saying goes," writes David Fear in a review for Rolling Stone. "Nor is it suitable for consumption by most gamers, film lovers, or 99 percent of carbon-based life forms." Like Fear, many critics found the film to be insulting, even offensive in terms of what the filmmakers and producers deemed worthy of the audience's attention, interest, and money. Writing for The Daily Beast, Nick Schager described "Borderlands" as "so drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic."

Things weren't much better across the pond. Writing for the British newspaper the Independent, Clarisse Loughrey said that the film has "dragged us back to a time when studios used to make these with all the grace and acuity of a drunk person attempting to place a 3am chicken nugget order." Some may argue that these critics are reading too much into what is meant to be a fun video game movie, but general audiences aren't buying into it, either, as reflected in the dire box office numbers.

If you're willing to wade into the audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll find a bevy of unfiltered reviews written by franchise fans who are outraged. "Just an empty shell of the actual Borderlands world," writes one reviewer, adding, "Characters portrayed horribly, no humor lands. [It's a] straight to DVD product." Another took to the website to share that they had high hopes going into the film. "I played all 3 games and was looking forward to this movie," they said. "Unfortunately this movie is just bad." One thing is clear — even the most dedicated of "Borderlands" lovers found nothing to like here.

Most fans reviewing the film have the same gripes about the muddled adaptation, which proved fatal. The "Borderlands" movie needed to be championed by the games' audience in order to succeed. Video game adaptations like this are largely sold as celebrations of the games themselves, parties for long-time fans to indulge in a piece of pop culture meaningful to them. That all being said, it would be wrong to characterize those disappointed by "Borderlands" entirely as disgruntled fans. Cinemascore, which surveys audience members after they've seen the film, returned a grade of D+. Among recent releases on their sites, only "The Exorcism" was graded lower.

Another tactic used to attract non-gamers to "Borderlands" was the casting of almost unanimously high-profile actors. In addition to Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Jamie Lee Curtis, "Barbie" and "Ahsoka" breakout Ariana Greenblatt appears as Tiny Tina. Jack Black voices the iconic robot Claptrap, with whom the "Borderlands" games are synonymous. Fans of the games were disappointed that producers didn't hire David Eddings or Jim Foronda, who voiced the character in the original games. Either one of them could have stepped back into the role, likely for a fraction of Black's price. Many fans can't help but feel as though Black's presence does little for the movie other than allow Lionsgate to add his name to the poster.

Even outside of cynical studio calculations, the film's marketing failed to sell the audience on the cast leading up to the movie, with anxieties over casting announcements routinely cropping up on social media. Many fans pointed out that the cast as a whole was significantly older than they should have been (Blanchett's Lilith was just 22 in the first "Borderlands" game, while Curtis' Dr. Tannis is thought to be in her 30s), and that Hart specifically seemed unconvincing as Roland. And, on top of miscast actors, there were missing characters: Fans were shocked that Mordecai and Brick were missing from the movie.

Like "Fallout," "Borderlands" is a decades-old gaming franchise with meticulous lore and some beloved characters. So why did the "Fallout" TV series blow everyone away when "Borderlands" flopped hard? "Fallout" knew that non-gamers would be attracted to the unique world and tone of the games, which they could now experience for themselves in some fashion without having to pick up a controller and spend dozens of hours at a screen. The makers of the "Borderlands" movie, meanwhile, played it safe and paid the price.

One of the most controversial decisions was to make "Borderlands" a PG-13 film, when the games feature the sort of profanity and gleefully gory violence that would require an R rating if adapted faithfully. This was presumably a departure made under the long-held assumption that PG-13 movies fare better financially, if only for the simple fact that unaccompanied minors aren't barred from buying tickets.

Ironically, it seems that the PG-13 rating actually hurt "Borderlands" in terms of box office potential. As the "Deadpool" franchise has proven time and again, an R rating can help otherwise middle-of-the-road movies stand out from the crowd. Even "Deadpool & Wolverine" is rated R, the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to get this rating. By trying to attract a wider range of viewers, "Borderlands" only hindered itself.

From the start of its marketing campaign, it was obvious that "Borderlands" wanted to channel the success of blockbuster action comedies like "The Suicide Squad," "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves," and "Guardians of the Galaxy," the last of which arguably defined this specific flavor of action comedy for contemporary audiences. These films rely on an ensemble of colorful antiheroes, with much of the comedy being mined from how inept they are at their jobs and/or how badly they misbehave according to normal heroic standards.

Of course, this formula doesn't necessarily guarantee financial success, as "Dungeons & Dragons" found out the hard way — it was one of the biggest box office bombs of 2023 despite actually being a great movie. But if a film attempts to market itself in this fashion and doesn't deliver, failure is almost sure to follow. As entertainment consultant David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research said of "Borderlands" in a Variety interview, "If an action comedy is going to work, it has to be funny, and almost no one thinks this picture is." Indeed, the lack of working jokes was brought up numerous times in negative write-ups on Rotten Tomatoes, both by critics and audience reviewers.

One word that comes up in most reviews for "Borderlands" is "script," usually following words such as "flat" and "awful." IndieWire described it as "brutally bad" in its review, but why was the script so terrible, exactly? On the surface, it's all down to Eli Roth and someone called either Joe Crombie or Joe Abercrombie, depending on where you look. Many assumed this was the pen name of Craig Mazin, the writer-director who helped lead audiences into the golden age of video game adaptations with "The Last of Us" and who was previously attached to "Borderlands" as a writer. However, Mazin cryptically but firmly denied his involvement, telling Variety, "I did not use a pseudonym. If the name in question is indeed a pseudonym, all I can say is... it's not mine."

When you look into it further, it seems to be a case of too many chefs spoiling the broth. The end product appears to be a hodgepodge of ideas from several writers who came and went during the years the film spent in development hell. Aaron Berg and Oren Uziel were both hired as writers early in development, but weren't around by the time Roth and Mazin got involved in 2020. "Bullet Train" scribe Zak Olkewicz was hired during reshoots, and "Euphoria" creator Sam Levinson received an "additional literary materials" credit, as did Berg, Uziel, Olkewicz, Chris Bremner, Juel Taylor, and Tony Rettenmaier.

Another reason that "Borderlands" failed so miserably is that its director exited the project before it was fully completed. This isn't entirely Eli Roth's fault, as "Borderlands" suffered through setbacks at all stages of production, including post. Roth wrapped filming all the way back in June 2021, after which his attention began shifting toward his next project — 2023's "Thanksgiving," a slasher flick which wound up being his most lauded directorial effort to date.

In January 2023, word began to spread that Roth had been fired from "Borderlands" during post-production and was being replaced by "Deadpool" director Tim Miller. In reality, Roth was merely unable to return for a late set of reshoots scheduled 18 months after he'd originally wrapped, as he was preparing to shoot "Thanksgiving." Even so, the fact remains that Miller had to effectively finish the movie for Roth while the latter director was entirely preoccupied with another project.

It's worth noting that Roth wasn't the only one to move beyond "Borderlands" before reshoots began. Ariana Greenblatt filmed her breakout role in "Barbie" during this time, and, most notably, Cate Blanchett shot "Tár," the psychological drama film that earned her an Academy Award nomination. The fact that the film made it across the finish line after the cast and crew had dispersed in so many different directions and for so long is a minor miracle, but it didn't help when it came to box office haul.

As it currently stands, "Borderlands" will have no impact beyond a bruise on the games' brand and a place in the ever-growing pile of movies that make the case against video game movies. Even as shows like "Fallout," "Halo," "The Last of Us," "Twisted Metal," "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners," and even to some extent Netflix's "The Witcher" have proven that it is possible to translate these beloved works to a traditional narrative medium, movies continue to be an issue. We've arguably yet to see an adult video game film adaptation that is widely considered to be a success.

"Borderlands" joins the ranks of recent duds like "Five Nights at Freddy's," "Uncharted," "Mortal Kombat," and "Monster Hunter," all of which received harsh reviews when they debuted. Family features like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "Sonic the Hedgehog," and "Detective Pikachu" have fared a little better, but on the whole, films like "Borderlands" hurt the public perception of video game movies. It's a frustrating development for fans of grown-up video games that would love to see their favorite properties on the big screen, but hopefully some lessons are learned from this latest misfire.