Borderlands’ big screen adaptation has cemented itself as one of the biggest flops of 2024, with the movie suffering significant losses and making back only a fraction of its budget.
While most video game fans shutter at the thought of one of their beloved projects getting a movie deal, some Borderlands fans were hopeful that the game’s bombastic style could be easily translated to the big screen.
However, any hope of a faithful film was dashed as Borderlands was dubbed the “worst movie of the year”, as many viewers called it out for not matching the source material.
And things only got worse as the movie’s reign of mediocrity and disappointment finally met a crushing end as it was revealed that Borderlands only made $31 million during its theatrical run, barely making a dent in the film’s $115 million budget.
Video game adaptations are seen as the bottom of the barrel of Hollywood, but Borderlands had a unique advantage against other games in having a cast of characters people have been attached to for a long time.
Set on the fictional planet of Pandora, the player is thrust in a first-person shooter landscape where they must out maneuver bandits, mercenaries, dangerous wildlife, and more.
In many ways, Borderlands is a lot Fallout, another dystopian video game franchise that received a live-action adaptation through Amazon Prime Video.
However, the TV series of Fallout proved why Borderlands ended up being such a flop because it seemed like no one was leaving the theater to boot up Borderlands again, whereas older Fallout games only became more popular thanks to its show.
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So, the fact that Borderlands became one of 2024’s biggest failures isn’t that surprising, and this was completely reflected in the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes score.
Despite being directed by horror movie golden boy Eli Roth, the film earned a staggering 10% along with an abundance of negative reviews.
“[Borderlands] is a colorful mess; a flurry of bullets and bad line readings that left me in a 100-minute brain fog,” one critic wrote.
Another referred to Borderlands as a “cacophonous crash-and-bang not-terribly-interesting CGI’d hyper violent movie.”
And a third viewer suggested other audience members should just skip the movie and head straight to the source material writing, “If you do want to see Borderlands, wait until you can stream it at home. That way, if it annoys you too much, you can always pick up your controller and play the original games instead. You’ll have a much better time.”
For more, check out all the other new movies coming out this month. You can also keep up with our guide to the best movies of 2024 so far.
