After so many years in production, a director change, and some reshoots, Lionsgate’s Borderlands movie is here, and it’s…apparently not very good! Even with Cate Blanchett at the helm doing her best to have a good time, the film’s gotten a lot of negative reviews, and that negativity has been equally devastating on its box office prospects.
Per Variety, the adaptation of Gearbox’s famous loot-shoot series made $8.8 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Yes, you read that right; $4 million came domestically, and word of mouth has not done it any favors. According to analyst Luiz Fernando, the film earned a D+ CinemaScore rating, which I personally didn’t think could happen. For further comparison, that’s nearly three times less than the opening weekends for the 2018 Tomb Raider remake, or 2021’s Mortal Kombat movie the latter of which had to contend with the pandemic and a simultaneous streaming release on then-HBO Max. And for director Eli Roth, slightly below the $10.4 million open for last year’s Thanksgiving, which only cost $15 million to make in comparison to Borderlands’ reported $115 million.
The general consensus around the movie appears to be to just go play the games instead if you want some whizbang shooty fun, or Tales from the Borderlands if you want to care about the universe and characters. At time of writing, its Rotten Tomatoes score has shot up from 3% to 10%, and it’s faring slightly better with audiences at 50%. Maybe it’ll find a slightly more receptive audience when it hits streaming, after which Gearbox and 2K just take a few weeks to let it fade from memory. The movie can’t be enough to kill the franchise dead—look at how much Street Fighter’s 2009 movie didn’t matter—but it’ll probably be an awkward question some developers have to field whenever Borderlands 4 eventually comes out.
Oh, and Deadpool & Wolverine crossed the $1 billion mark. Yaaaaaay.
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