For the longest time, video game adaptations, especially live-action adaptations, were nothing short of terrible. If you were lucky, you’d get one that was “average,” and then you could salvage things about it. More recently, things have finally started to turn the corner, as numerous video game adaptations, across the whole spectrum of movie-making, have come out and done incredibly well, even winning awards! It seemed like everything was FINALLY going right in the video game adaptation world…and then the Borderlands Movie showed up, and while there “ain’t no rest for the wicked,” the people who made this movie and released it were clearly wicked in thinking that this would be praised in any way.
From start to finish, the movie was bad. The casting was fine in some places, but terrible in others. We’re looking at you, Kevin Hart. Furthermore, there were rewrites upon rewrites behind the scenes, and the end result was something that only “looked” like the video game series from Gearbox Software and not what it actually was.
Rightfully, it bombed, and it’s been quickly forgotten by most. However, Randy Pitchford, the man behind the franchise, said that while it was bad, he knew the Borderlands Movie could’ve been worse. He told The Gamer:
“It would have been way worse if I directed it. I’m not a filmmaker. Eli Roth is an awesome filmmaker. I promise you, if I directed that movie, it’d be a disaster.”
…maybe, but it was already a disaster upon arrival in theaters, so it was a pretty low bar to try and “do worse with.” That being said, what might surprise you is that while Pitchford acknowledges the failure, he wouldn’t mind if another creator stepped up to “take a swing” at making a new film:
“My attitude is, if there are great creators, artists, entertainers that have something to say and they think they can only do it with Borderlands, and they can demonstrate that they can do it, I want to enable that. We don’t always succeed, but we’ve got to keep swinging.”
On the one hand, you can see the beauty in his statement, as there has to be SOMEONE out there who not only likes this franchise but can think of a fun way to bring it to life. The bones are all there, and there’s fun to be had with the characters…if done properly.
Whether that person or group steps up soon to try again is a different story.
