Lionsgate CEO Discusses the Failure of BORDERLANDS - "Everything That Could Go Wrong Did Go Wrong"
One of the biggest box office flops of the year was Lionsgate’s big screen adaptation of Borderlands. After a dismal $9 million opening weekend, the movie concluded its month-long run at the box office with only $31 million.
The film had a production budget of $115 million and a $30 million marketing campaign and the studio is said to have lost around $114 million on the film.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer recently addressed the film’s failure singling it out as the studios biggest money loser.
He said: "Within our television Group, our unscripted business is feeling the effects of a continuing market correction.
“In our film group, the poor box office performance of Borderlands, coupled with softer-than-anticipated results for other releases in the quarter, reflected an environment with less margin for error than ever before."
He went on to explain: "Nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong: it sat on the shelf for too long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usual strict financial models.
“Several of our other releases in the quarter, though cushioned by financial models that worked as intended, didn’t live up to either our standards or our projections."
There are a lot of reasons why Borderlands bombed, and the first mistake the studio made was hiring Eli Roth to direct it. Ultimately the movie was void of life and was just a paint-by-numbers film that did nothing interesting or unique.
A lot of star power just can’t save a poorly made movie.
Source: THR