The film Borderlands received generally poor reviews from critics, but this does not necessarily indicate a lack of success at the office, as many poorly reviewed films do quite well. However, this was not the case with the film Borderlands, which flopped in its opening weekend in the US, grossing just $8.8 million.
The film grossed $7.7 million in international markets after grossing $16.5 million worldwide. Variety, which provided the box office figures, called the figure “embarrassing.”
According to the report, around 60 percent of the Borderlands film’s production costs have already been recouped through pre-sales to international theaters. Nevertheless, this is a disappointing result for the film, which had a production budget of $115 million and advertising and distribution costs of around $30 million.
Not only is Borderlands performing poorly with critics, the film also received a D+ rating on CinemaScore, a platform that measures audience sentiment. It is one of the lowest-rated major films of 2024 and also one of the biggest box office flops of 2024 so far.
The highest-grossing video game movie of all time is The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide (and was largely well-received by critics). You can see the rest of the highest-grossing video game movies in the gallery below.
Borderlands was underwhelming, despite being an established, popular IP with a loyal fanbase and a cast consisting of high-profile and acclaimed actors such as Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, and Edgar Ramirez. For more, check out GameSpot’s Borderlands movie review.
Randy Pitchford, the head of Borderlands game developer Gearbox, said the Borderlands video game series will not be affected by how the film performs at the box office. The film studio Lionsgate is the company whose money is at stake, Pitchford stressed.
“The money around the film is the film studio’s risk, so I’m not really affected by it, other than that if the studio loses money, they might not want to make another film (which would be a shame),” he said on social media.
Strauss Zelnick, head of Gearbox owner Take-Two and a former film producer himself, urged people to give the film a chance despite its poor reviews.
