What was once one of the most anticipated video game adaptations ever went on to become one of the year’s biggest flops at the box office instead, and now, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer has provided some insight into why he thinks Borderlands failed so miserably. Directed by Eli Roth and produced on a budget of $120 million, the action-comedy went on to earn just $33 million during its theatrical run, and was largely panned by critics upon its release, with the majority agreeing that it has no redeeming qualities to even put it in the category of movies that are so bad they’re good.

Feltheimer was on hand for Lionsgate’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday (via IGN) to address the studio’s losses, which came in at $163.3 million dollars. When the subject of Borderlands‘ “poor box office performance” came up, the CEO blamed everything from the pandemic to interest rates for its dismal defeat, saying that “everything that could go wrong did go wrong.”

“On Borderlands, 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 usually strict financial models.”

Lionsgate’s overall revenue for the quarter was $948.6 million, which was down from $101.1 billion a year ago, something Feltheimer called “disappointing” that speaks to an “environment with less margin for error than ever before.” While he didn’t specifically call out The Crow (which didn’t even make back half its budget of $50 million), he did comment that there were several other releases that “didn’t live up to either our standards or our projections.”

The Harsh Reality Is That Borderlands Just Wasn’t a Good Movie

Having been dubbed by some as the worst video game adaptation ever made (its Rotten Tomatoes score is even lower than 2005’s Doom), it’s easy to blame Borderlands’ failure on a number of outside factors. When it comes right down to it, though, it just wasn’t a good movie. All the ingredients were there for a hit – including an all-star cast that featured the likes of Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis – but Roth’s execution fell flat.

What could have been a fun adaptation of the shooter-looter game was hindered by its PG-13 rating, generic action, and juvenile humor. It seemed to be just going through the motions from one scene to the next, trying its best to service the gaming community while offering no real surprises. Then there’s the pacing issues with the film. Borderlands started off quickly, but petered out after the first hour, and as MovieWeb’s own Julian Roman put it in his review:

“This attempt at intrigue stumbles when everything was rightly humming along at a good clip. There’s a degree of overthinking that adds up to unnecessary filler. Roth should have stuck with the eye candy and action until the credits.”

Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom for Feltheimer and Lionsgate, as 2025 will see the release of some expected hits that will hopefully keep investors and moviegoers happy, including the John Wick spin-off Ballerina, Saw XI, and Now You See Me 3. This will take things in 2026 for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which will once again return fans to the world of Panem.