9mo ago

'Borderlands' Bombs at Box Office; Lionsgate CEO Responds

deadline.com

Lionsgate CEO On ‘Borderlands’ Bombing: “Everything That Could Go Wrong Did Go Wrong”

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"It was a clear case of a cult game failing to find a broader audience."
The non-gamers assumed it was about the game. The gamers knew it wasn't about the game. It failed to find any audience. And a decade too late.
- Exact same problem that the Halo show had - they wrote it for the broad audience and hired a bunch of people who didn't care at all about the source material, and then they casted it for who they thought would be popular. Which of course alienated the core fans and lost the broad audience.
  Instead of catering to the devote fans and who then would encourage the broader audience to go see it with them. Look at Fallout. You can make a good show that the fans will enjoy, who will get others to watch too.
  
  I never gave the Fallout games a fair shake until after watching the series. Played 4 and powered through the slow start that had turned me off of it before and ended up really enjoying the game.
  So yeah, I guess you could say I'm something of a statistic myself.
- I'll never understand the ego that is required to take a beloved ip and go: never read it never played it, don't wanna know anything about it, here is what I think it should be. Even if it's good somehow, it's not what anyone wanted.
  
  Mr. Krabs leans into the mic, unprompted, "money!"
- By this, they mean "We made a bad movie, and for some strange reason people didn't want to see it. We're confused."
- What a BS excuse. That's like saying the Dragon Ball movie did bad because it's a cult show that failed to find a broader audience.
- He says, implying all Borderlands fans watched or even wanted this movie in the first place.
Guys... I decided to watch Borderlands just to see how bad it was. It's so very very bad.
Five minutes in it was already a train wreck. Virtually EVERY role was miscast (or if I've been very generous, given bad direction). Most of the acting was so bad I thought Kevin Hart did a GREAT JOB! Half the soundtrack felt like it was pulled from Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
They re-wrote so much of the story and so many of the characters it was like why even bother getting the IP in the first place?
And the BIG TWIST was that Lilith was a Siren. You know, something that is absolutely no secret to anyone who's ever played ANY of the Borderlands games.
I'm just so absolutely dumbfounded how they could think that any of this was good. But sure, blame it on the "cult game" that's sold over 77 million copies and had TWO successful game releases after you announced your movie.

15 comments