Summary
Borderlandshas officially flopped at the domestic box office, bringing in just $8.8 million this weekend. This is against a budget of around $115 million, which doesn’t include the additional costs brought on by marketing.
As reported byDeadlineandVariety, the US box office charts this weekend are grim reading for Borderlands distributor Lionsgate. The figure falls below the already low expectations for the film, as it had previously been projected to bring in around $10 million.
Borderlands Brings In $8.8 Million In the US On Its Opening Weekend
Even without including the marketing and distributing costs - which aren’t publicly known, but Variety reports to be around $30 million - this means that Borderlands' domestic box office takings this weekend make up around eight percent of its budget. This doesn’t include its international performance just yet, so there’s some more money to be made there, but it’s certainly not a good start.
Looking at the charts, Borderlands was beaten by Deadpool & Wolverine - which is in the top spot for the third weekend in a row - and It Ends With Us.
This is a far cry from the success that other video game adaptations have enjoyed in recent years. The Mario movie was the most successful of them all,making more than $1 billion at the international box officeand very quickly becomingthe highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time. The Sonic series has also seen success in theatres, with a third film premiering this December.
It remains to be seen what this performance at the box office means for Borderlands' future film endeavours. However, coupling this withthe negative reviews, it’s a poor start for the series.
In any case, fans have been promisednews on the video game front “sooner rather than later”, which could win back those who didn’t care for this film adaptation. It’s largely assumed that the next game will be Borderlands 4, but this hasn’t been confirmed just yet.
Borderlands
WHERE TO PLAY
Gearbox Software’s 2009 loot-shooter Borderlands kicked off a popular series, leading to spin-offs and a big-budget Hollywood movie. You play as one of four Vault Hunters looking for an ancient Vault on the planet Pandora.
