As a seasoned movie critic with over three decades of experience under my belt, I must say that the saga of “Borderlands” is one for the record books – and not in a good way. Having witnessed countless films rise and fall, this latest release has left me scratching my head in disbelief.
2024’s Borderlands release has been challenging so far, marking the steepest second-week decline among all movies launched that year. I was part of the audience who saw it on its debut day, August 9, 2024. The movie received a dismal 9% approval from critics and a disappointing D+ CinemaScore, which is a clear sign that expectations were not met.
In its second week, the film Borderlands experienced a significant drop at the box office, earning only $2.35 million across 3,125 theaters. According to ScreenRant, this represents a steep decline of 72%, making it the most substantial drop among wide-release movies in 2024, surpassing the drops for MaXXXine (69.1%) and The Bikerider (65.9%). Notably, these comparative films had much lower budgets than Borderlands, which is a costly adaptation of a video game. Remarkably, the second-weekend earnings for Borderlands were worse than those of other high-budget flops this year, such as Madame Web (61.4%) and Argylle (64.2 %).
Borderlands Bombs Hard
The movie ‘Borderlands’ has earned just $13 million in the US and $18 million globally so far, which is disappointing given its production cost was at least $110 million. Although ‘Borderlands’ initially outperformed ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’, another flop from August, in terms of opening weekend earnings ($6 million), ‘Harold’ held up better in the second week with a smaller drop (48.9%). The total earnings for ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ were $15 million domestically and $20 million worldwide, but it had a lower budget of only $40 million compared to ‘Borderlands’.
Currently, one notable advantage of “Borderlands” is said to be that approximately 60% of its production costs were already recouped through international pre-sales. Additionally, it’s important to note that the decrease in box office earnings during its second weekend doesn’t account for limited releases or special re-releases, such as “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” which experienced an 83.5% drop in its second weekend following the May Fourth holiday. Although this may lessen the financial impact, the historical record of “Borderlands” is mostly unfavorable when it comes to film history.
Since its release, the film adaptation of ‘Borderlands’ has been plagued with a series of unfavorable headlines, including the largest second-weekend box office drop and the poorest CinemaScore rating for a video game movie. While ‘Madame Web’ and ‘Argylle’ were the initial disappointments of 2024, ‘Borderlands’ has managed to surpass them in terms of underperformance at the box office and critical reception. Unless another high-profile film flops even more dramatically (such as ‘Kraven the Hunter’, which is still in production, or potentially ‘The Crow’), it appears that ‘Borderlands’ will hold the title for the biggest bomb of 2024, an unwanted accolade that nobody wanted to claim.
Read More
Sorry. No data so far.
2024-08-19 05:31