Lionsgate CEO on Borderlands bombing at the box-office: “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong”

Borderlands was a genuine bomb. No doubt about it. The adaptation of the acclaimed video game franchise grossed just $33 million in theaters and was absolutely trashed by critics. During a recent earnings call, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer spoke about the epic failure of Borderlands.

“On Borderlands, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong: 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,” Feltheimer said. With a budget of around $120 million, Borderlands stands to lose the studio a lot of money. Although Lionsgate did mitigate some of the risks by selling foreign rights, sources told Deadline that Borderlands could still lose as much as $30 million. “The success of our financial models doesn’t take the place of also getting the creative right,” Feltheimer added

Borderlands wasn’t the only bomb Lionsgate had on its hands this year, as Whitebird, The Crow, Killer’s Game, and Never Let Go also underperformed at the box office.

Based on the video game franchise of the same name, Borderlands stars Cate Blanchett as Lillith, an infamous outlaw who returns to the place where she grew up and forms an alliance with a team of misfits to find the missing daughter of the most powerful man in the universe. The ensemble cast also includes Kevin Hart as Roland, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as Krieg, Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Patricia Tannis, and Jack Black as the voice of Claptrap.

There was talk of the film being shot with an R-rating in mind, but that was changed during post-production. I doubt a little more blood and gore would have fixed the film’s problems. In fact, Borderland did so poorly that Lionsgate decided to dump it on PVOD less than a month after it had debuted in theaters.

Our own Chris Bumbray called the film a “disaster” that desperately wants to be the next Guardians of the Galaxy but lacks the charm or vision to do so. Bumbray added that it was “one of the worst big-budget movies I’ve seen in a while” and will likely be forgotten entirely in just a few weeks. Yikes. You can check out the rest of his review right here.