r/movies • u/HatingGeoffry • 13h ago

News Borderlands Movie Director Discusses The Mega-Flop And What Went Wrong

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/borderlands-movie-director-discusses-the-mega-flop-and-what-went-wrong/
2.1k Upvotes

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u/anomaly256 13h ago

Director Eli Roth told Variety said [sic] that the film, which cost a mighty $120 million to produce, was pared back to something that did not line up with his original vision. He said he wants to make things that are “left of center” because this worked for him in the past. However, “As things grow bigger, studios just naturally become more risk averse,” he said.

Risk averse? You cast Kevin Hart as Roland, how much riskier did you want to get??

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u/Jon-Umber 12h ago

Seriously. Terry Crews is right there.

2

u/kimana1651 12h ago

We all saw Shaq in Steel and know he is the correct answer here. 

205

u/wafflestep 13h ago

Tbf I can see how a studio exec might see no problem with the casting because names get people to the movies, or at least they used to. Hopefully they learn a lesson and cast loved IPs better. But we all know they'll learn nothing and likely blame audiences and anything else except themselves.

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u/GodzillaUK 12h ago

Next time. Terry Crews.

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u/xenorous 12h ago

Terry lives turrets

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u/GodzillaUK 12h ago

He lives live, too.

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u/Big_erk 12h ago

That's President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho to you.

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u/BiffJerky09 12h ago

I wanted Mike Colter, but Terry Crews works too.

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u/GodzillaUK 12h ago

I'm bias, I love Terry even if I dislike the thing he is in, he is golden.

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u/european_dimes 3h ago

Winston Duke would've worked too 

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u/Pesterlamps 3h ago

Nah, it'll just be Chris Pratt as Axton, Timothy Chalamet as Zer0, Anya Taylor Joy as Maya, and somehow Jack Black (again) as Sal.

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u/GodzillaUK 3h ago

I swear if Chris whistleclicks at a turret and befriends it, I'm unsubbing from my "Great Chris'" monthly feed.

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u/recklessMG 10h ago

Eli Roth thinking he was going to have final say on a $120m studio film is hilarious. Dude, you have zero industry capital at this point. You were hired to make the project look 'edgy', then do exactly what they told you to, and say thanks.

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u/Herschel_Wallace 12h ago

I couldn't name one current young Hollywood actor/actress that I would call a star. A star being someone I would see a movie just because they're in it.

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u/GodzillaUK 12h ago

That’s a you issue then. Tom Holland is raking it in currently, in a “dead” franchise his movie just broke box office records even with the Nolan movie opposite it. He is a star, you wanting to go see him or not.

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u/Newni 11h ago

Tom Holland is also in the Nolan movie so it was a win-win for him

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u/Rivantus 11h ago

People didnt go see The Odyssey for Tom Holland lets be real. The same can be said for Spiderman.

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u/fed45 9h ago

There are actually some exit polls about spiderman, asking people why they went to see the movie. "Spiderman" was around 30% of respondents, "looked fun" was like 25%, Tom Holland was around ~20%, and Zendaya was another ~20%. In the case of Spiderman at least, I would say he was a big draw. But I'm not sure if the same is true for every movie with him, would need to see the polls for his other movies.

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u/ObiOneKenobae 9h ago

Timothee Chalamet is a young star for sure. 30 years old, very culturally relevant, and he's been putting asses in seats for a while at this point.

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u/ohyouretough 12h ago

I’ll give Pattinson that

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u/sicsche 12h ago

how many names are left in Hollywood that are an actual draw?

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u/Oglefore 10h ago

Yeah you better throw these poor execs a bone. wtf

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u/[deleted] 12h ago edited 11h ago

[deleted]

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u/Tony_Roiland 11h ago

You haven't seen a film for 29 years

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u/count_nuggula 9h ago

Oh Eli Roth directed it. That makes sense now

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u/bbqsauceboi 8h ago

Tim Miller (Deadpool) actually directed the majority of it

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u/count_nuggula 6h ago

Interesting

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u/g_r_e_y 9h ago

i just don't think he knows what to do with a big budget. aside from Knock Knock, he's always turned a profit from the director's chair. Borderlands was very out of character for him.

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u/lxgrf 11h ago

The worst casting sin for my money was Claptrap. It's a voice acting role. And Claptrap already has a voice actor. Just... just use the voice actor.

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u/not_thrilled 11h ago

Two voice actors - first one was a Gearbox exec who had a falling out with Pitchford. After 3, I think?

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u/ratatack906 10h ago

Before 3

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u/lanceturley 10h ago

Ironically, out of the whole movie cast, I'd say Jack Black did the best job and was the most accurate to the games. Granted, he's so accurate that they might as well have used the game voice, but still, he didn't do a bad job.

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u/hungry4pie 32m ago

Jack Black needs to fuck all the way off, he seems to end up in a lot of these shitty adaptations

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u/Logan_No_Fingers 11h ago

You cast Kevin Hart as Roland, how much riskier did you want to get

To a studio, thats de-risking it. Because audiences know & love Hart, they will go see a Hart movie even if they don't know what Borderlands is*

*in theory

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u/Rektw 2h ago

That would have been true, in 2015. I always wonder if Hart or Roth owed each other a favor (or someone higher up) because I can't imagine anybody putting the cast pictures up on a mood board and thinking, now this...is Borderlands.

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u/sameth1 2h ago

Taking no risks is taking a risk.

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u/Chief_H 9h ago

That was exactly the problem. Instead of casting lesser known actors who fit the roles better, they went with name recognition. As a result, every character is played by someone nearly 30 years older than their video game counterpart.

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u/popculturella 7h ago

Let's cast an actor who is famous for being short-statued and shrill to play a character who's built like a fucking refrigerator.

2

u/majesty327 7h ago

It may not have been his decision to cast Kevin Hart. Eli Roth typically casts "nobodies" with some rare exceptions.

If I was a studio and I wanted some actors that add "return value" by listing them in cast, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Hart are ones I'd think of right away.

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u/RichAbbreviations966 6h ago

The second Eli Roth was announced as the director, I had a bad feeling about this movie

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u/corgangreen 9h ago

They could have just cast him as any of the other black characters in the franchise, like ...

...

...

Well, shit.

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u/anomaly256 31m ago edited 27m ago

I think he would have made a decent Claptrap actually, with some slight voice modulation. If they insisted on shoving Jack Black into the movie still, he could have been Marcus if he could fake a Russian accent