Summary
TheBorderlandsmovie is now a little over 24 hours from its advanced screenings. Themarketing machine is in full swingas Gearbox and Lionsgate attempt to put bums in seats ahead of the first movie in the sci-fi franchise.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be working, as we’ve analyzed 50 advanced screenings from 25 of the United States' biggest movie theaters, and it’s not looking good.
Tickets Are Struggling To Sell For Opening Night
The lead-up to the Borderlands movie hasn’t been great. The movie required two weeks of reshoots with a different director,trailers have dropped to extremely mixed reactions, and the movie was given a PG-13 rating despite the games being very much M-rated. Metacritic also confirmed that reviewswouldn’t be dropping before opening day, which is often a bad sign. All of this has resulted in trepidation from the audience, which looks like it has translated to a lack of ticket sales.
As part of our analysis, we looked at 50 screenings of the movie, one in the early evening and one at night, from 25 of America’sbiggest movie theaters. These screenings were split across a range of formats, including IMAX, Dolby, XD, Digital, and standard screens.
Across the times we analyzed, showings for theBorderlands moviewere approximately 4.5% full, with little time for ticket sales remaining. Of the 50 showings, only two had filled more than 25 percent of the seats, with 11 showings selling zero tickets, and a further three having sold under one percent of its allocation.
The 50 showings we examined had a total of 13,143 seats available for purchase, but only 609 were taken at the time of our analysis.
While this is only a snapshot of the movie’s screenings, it’s likely to raise alarms for those involved. Loose opening weekend predictions put sales somewherebetween $13 and $18 millionfor the movie that wasfirst pitched in 2009.
5:30 PM
173
1
1 percent
7:00 PM
519
128
25 percent
7:15 PM
437
115
28 percent
9:15 PM
116
3
3 percent
8:00 PM
205
14
7 percent
10:30 PM
0 percent
216
20
9 percent
408
1> percent
6:55 PM
86
8:55 PM
6:15 PM
325
7
2 percent
344
Cinemark Merriam and XD
249
9:40 PM
4
168
2
6:00 PM
418
18
4 percent
9
6:10 PM
560
8:50 PM
5:45 PM
131
342
6:30 PM
132
12
10:20 PM
294
5:40 PM
311
8:10 PM
8 percent
8:25 PM
16
6 percent
98
6
8:35 PM
5:55 PM
414
164
9:00 PM
301
32
11 percent
8:30 PM
225
29
13 percent
410
8:20 PM
8
6:05 PM
213
125
256
47
18 percent
10:00 PM
260
10
211
43
20 percent
280
235
9:30 PM
262
All data is correct as of 5 am ET, Wednesday, July 7.
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.
