Borderlands Movie’s Massive Failure Detailed By Lionsgate Exec

The Borderlands movie may not get much attention during Oscar season, but it’s probably going to be a contender at the Razzies for the worst film of 2024. The reviews were brutal and it made only $31 million worldwide in its first month of release. Now, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer is opening up about the failure of the movie, and he didn’t mince words.

“Nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” Feltheimer told investors during a conference call. “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 put together an impressive cast for the film, including Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ariana Greenblatt. According to Borderlands stunt coordinator Jimmy O’Dee, Roth originally shot Borderlands as an R-rated movie. Deadpool director Tim Miller oversaw the pricy reshoots that transformed it into a PG-13 film.

The final worldwide total for Borderlands was reportedly $33 million against a budget of $110-120 million. The movie may have been a disappointing flop, but Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick touted its impact in a separate investors call earlier this week. Zeknick indicated that the movie led to a significant uptick in Borderlands video game sales. That may ease the pain for the game’s parent company–which wasn’t on the hook for the film’s costs–since a theatrical sequel isn’t in the cards.