Give the Borderlands movie a chance, Take-Two Interactive’s chief executive said. OK, we did. We gave it a weekend. And it’s official, the movie is a flaming bag of dog doodie.
Borderlands, starring Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and even Jamie Lee Curtis, dragged an $8.8 million opening weekend domestically. When you consider this cost at least $150 million to make and market, we could be looking at a big-budget money loser, not just a critical flop. And when you consider the drop-off even the blockbusters see at the box office in their second week of release, it sounds even more likely.
Don’t expect an overseas gate to save the producers’ bacon, either. Borderlands premiered Aug. 9 in North America and Europe (except Germany, which won’t get the film until Aug. 22). Dates for Asian markets haven’t been set yet.
Borderlands, the movie, has been savaged by critics as an uninspired cash-grab trying to get by on the name recognition of its cast rather than tell an interesting or even visually exciting story. The first batch of two dozen reviews gave it a 0% “fresh” rating with score aggregator Rotten Tomatoes; the number “improved” to 3%, then 6%, and now stands at 9%.
In an interview published by IGN on Thursday, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick appealed for everyone to “give the film a chance,” because “a lot of people worked really hard on it.” Zelnick cited its “amazing” cast as a reason to go see it. But he also admitted that Borderlands’ box office performance won’t “have a financial impact on us or on the franchise one way or the other.”
How have successful video game movies performed?
To give you an idea of what a successful video game adaptation looks like, take last year’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, also featuring an A-list ensemble cast. It opened with a $166 million premiere weekend — then dropped 45% in its second weekend, still tonning $92.3 million for that period. These are domestic box office totals, too.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie didn’t reach Borderlands debut weekend territory until its ninth week on the job, drawing $8.2 million for that weekend. By the way, this film was said to have a $100 million budget.
For a more moderate success, consider 2019’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu ($54.3 million opening, $25 million second weekend, $150 million budget) or 2022’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ($72.1 million opening, $29.3 million second weekend, $110 million budget). In both cases, it took a month for these films’ box office totals to sink to Borderlands’ debut take.
Incidentally, these three films are also three of the highest rated video game adaptations at Rotten Tomatoes: 59% for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and 68% for both Sonic 2 and Detective Pikachu, which is the record for a video game movie at that site.
Featured image: Lionsgate
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