By Jacob Oliveira
Borderlands is a massive IP which is very popular among fans, so when the movie was announced it seemed like an easy cash grab. With a budget of 110-120 million dollars it seemed like the movie would easily make its money back with such a big budget and a massive IP.
However, the fans were very skeptical as many other popular video games had terrible adaptations such as Uncharted or Doom. One of the main complaints about these movies is that they choose big name actors such as the Rock in Doom and Tom Holland in Uncharted, and the one thing they have in common is that they were not received well by fans of the series or movie goers. All faith for the movie was lost when the cast was revealed to be using heavy hitters such as Kevin Hart and Jaimie Lee Curtis. Feelings towards the movie became negative very quickly after that, with many fans pointing out how these actors are far too old to be playing these characters, and that they look nothing like the characters they are supposed to be portraying. The director said, “Let’s give the film a chance. A lot of people worked really hard on it. The underlying intellectual property is phenomenal, the cast is amazing.” This shows that he hasn’t listened to any complaints made by the fans as he still credits the cast as why fans should spend their money to see the movie and not the story. On release, the movie was bashed by fans and critics for how boring and bad the movie was. With all the negative press and the lack of interest in the movie, it’s no surprise that the movie flopped, barely bringing in 20 million dollars even with the lack of competition around the movie’s release. After the failure of Borderlands, I doubt Lionsgate will be returning to the Borderlands IP anytime soon.
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