The Borderlands movie adaptation generated just $4m across 3125 locations on its opening day.
As reported by Variety, even with boosted ticket sales from Imax and “other premium large-format auditoriums”, it seems its Hollywood cast isn’t enough of a draw for the $115m production.
Variety points out that distributor Lionsgate has “financially shielded itself” and recouped 60 percent of its production costs through international pre-sales, but right now the film has the dubious honour of boasting the worst critical reviews of any movie released this summer.
The Borderlands movie was, of course, in the works for a long time. It was initially announced back in 2015 before vanishing, and just as it looked like the project was dead and buried, Gearbox re-announced it in February 2020, this time with Hostel director Eli Roth at the helm.
Then, high-profile actors like Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gina Gershiwn, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black all signed onto the project.
But then came the reviews and… well, as Matt summarised for us earlier in the week, the early impressions were not great, with critics lamblasting the live-action film adaptation of Gearbox’s looter-shooter as everything from a “huge misfire” to a “disaster”.
Since then, Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick has implored fans to give it a chance, and Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford has “blocked over a dozen accounts” on X for being “truly nasty” about the movie.
