Borderlands Bombs At The Box Office With $10 Million Opening Weekend

Blake Lively's new movie "It Ends With Us" may be soaring high in its first weekend at the box office, but the same can't be said for "Borderlands." The adaptation of the popular sci-fi shooter video games from Gearbox Software may fail to break the $10 million mark in its debut after grossing just $4 million from 3,125 locations (including Imax and other premium formats) on its opening day.

If nothing else, at least a $10 million opening weekend will go nicely with the 10% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences aren't impressed either, with "Borderlands" garnering a D+ CinemaScore based on opening day exit polling. None of this comes as much of a surprise, given that the buzz surrounding the movie has been mostly negative, and it's had a rocky road to the big screen. "Borderlands" originally wrapped filming over three years ago, and underwent reshoots directed by Tim Miller ("Deadpool") last year. Fans were left baffled by some of the casting choices, such as Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis as characters who were around 30 years younger than them in the video games.

Physical mismatches could have been overcome (as proven by the success of Hugh Jackman in the role of Marvel's ultimate short king Wolverine), but lackluster trailers and bad reviews did little to entice audiences. And speaking of Wolverine, it certainly doesn't help that "Borderlands" is competing with "Deadpool & Wolverine," which is on track to gross north of $50 million in its third weekend. There's already an irreverent action-comedy featuring characters in wacky outfits dominating the box office, and this town ain't big enough for two of them.

"Borderlands" was always a bit of a long shot for Lionsgate. Greenlighting a PG-13 movie based on a cheerfully violent video game series and hiring a horror movie director whose biggest hit so far topped out at $81 million worldwide was a pretty big gamble — made even bigger by the $110-120 million budget. 

But while this bet didn't pay off, it would be wrong to condemn Hollywood studios for taking risks. First of all, sometimes those bets pay off. The first "Deadpool" movie was seen as such a non-starter that 20th Century Fox didn't want to make it at all. When it was eventually given the green light, it was with a meagre (for a superhero movie) budget of $58 million. Upon its release, "Deadpool" proved to the world that R-rated superhero movies could make a killing at the box office, and its second sequel is making a beeline to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever. Success stories like that don't happen without studios taking a few risks.

More importantly, while the verdict on "Borderlands" is a thumbs-down with an opening weekend to match, studio gambles can be a blessing for fans even when they don't pay off commercially. This year's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" was a spin-off prequel for a movie that barely broke even at the box office. As such, it's $168 million budget probably wasn't financially sensible — but it paid for some seriously purposeful savagery.