Eli Roth Says Borderlands Failed Because It Had No Clear Audience
Hennadiy Chemеris
Eli Roth says the Borderlands film failed at the concept stage, arguing that Lionsgate's $120 million budget left it trying to satisfy too many different viewers at once. In his view, the adaptation needed a hard R rating and a much meaner edge, but instead it was softened to chase a wider audience.
Roth said Lionsgate was worried about the film's $120 million budget and required changes to secure the softer rating instead of the R rating many game fans expected. In his view, that choice stripped the movie of the violence and tone that gave Borderlands its edge in the first place.
[cert=Eli Roth, director]You got something that belonged to nobody. It's not a kids' movie, but it's trying to appeal to everybody. It's for gamers, but it doesn't have the violence the gamers want because it can't be that extreme because it costs too much. You just wind up with a movie that's neither fish nor fowl.[/cit]
Roth said the finished film did not end up serving any audience at all. The result, he argued, was a project that was too restrained for fans of the games and too awkward to work as a broader crowd-pleaser.
The movie opened in 2024 and went on to gross about $33 million worldwide. Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer was equally blunt, saying that nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and pointing to the pandemic delay, reshoots, and rising interest rates as additional problems.
By the way, we previously published an article highlighting the most promising video game adaptations set to arrive in the coming years.
The film's performance also sank any hopes for a larger Borderlands screen future that Randy Pitchford once expected. Do you think Borderlands could have worked better with the harder-edged version Roth says it was meant to be?
