Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer addressed the Borders film and its disastrous box office performance, stating what factors likely caused the film’s failure. Based on the Gearbox Software video game franchise, the film follows outlaw Lillith (Cate Blanchett), who assembles a team to save Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), daughter of the powerful Deukalian Atlas (Edgar RamÃrez). The film received negative reviews from critics for being generic and not involving enough in its story and presentation. This was worsened by Borders‘ box office failure, the film grossing US$33 million worldwide against a budget of US$110-120 million.
Now, The Hollywood Reporter claims that during a report on the company’s second-quarter financials, Lionsgate’s Feltheimer acknowledged Borders‘bomb at the box office. The CEO blamed the long wait to release the film due to the Covid-19 pandemic and costly reshoots as reasons for its underperformance, also highlighting how other projects they released in the same period did not perform as expected. Check out what Feltheimer had to say below:
[N]In the beginning, everything that could go wrong went wrong: it sat on the shelf for too long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it out of the safety zone of our usual rigorous financial models. Several of our other launches in the quarter, although cushioned by financial models that worked as intended, did not meet our standards or projections.
What Lionsgate CEO’s statement says about Borderlands’ box office failure
The film had more fundamental issues than those discussed
Feltheimer went on to state how the cast of Borders being comprised of recognizable actors and its status as an established IP makes its box office performance an anomaly from which Lionsgate needs to learn lessons. The film likely wasn’t helped by most of the production taking place in 2021, with two weeks of reshoots taking place in 2023. However, the film’s problems are more prevalent than just reshoot costs and a long wait time. The film was also PG-13, despite the games’ M rating, and was criticized for not having as developed characters as in the source material.
The failure of Borders can also be contrasted with the success of other recent video game films such as The Super Mario Bros. movie in 2023, which grossed US$1.362 billion worldwide against a budget of US$100 million. Paramount’s next release Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is also highly anticipated, with the previous installment breaking video game movie records at the time of its release. If a potential Frontiers 2 or another Lionsgate video game adaptation in the future, they will also need to study blockbuster game films to figure out how to improve their performance.
Our Take on Lionsgate Acknowledging Borderlands’ Box Office Failure
A step in the right direction for video game movies
Although Feltheimer did not verbalize all of the issues that led to the Borders‘bomb at the box office, it’s still a step in the right direction for Lionsgate-developed video game films in the future. While a sequel to the film seems unlikely given its reception, future adaptations involving the production company could learn from the mistakes of its failures. With the success of video game movies in recent years likely leading to more, the company will no doubt utilize these lessons in its future films.
Source: THR