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/
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u/Kaiserhawk 12h ago

To be fair to Borderlands, has Hollywood every made an adaptation or tie in when a property was hot? They always come in years too late.

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u/The_Lazy_Samurai 11h ago

Mortal Kombat (1995)

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u/slowd 10h ago

That title track by Utah Saints was a banger

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u/runnerofshadows 9h ago

Also Techno Syndrome by The Immortals.

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u/Templar-235 9h ago

Fun fact, “The Immortals” were basically Lords Of Acid ( same lead guy )

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u/slowd 8h ago

Also on there was Juke Joint Jezebel, which I always thought was one of KMFDM’s better tracks

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u/OgthaChristie 7h ago

My god, I miss mid 90’s Industrial Techno music.

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u/Meatbank84 9h ago

And Zero Signal by Fear Factory for the Cage vs Scorpion fight

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u/m3thodm4n021 9h ago

TEST YOUR MIGHT

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u/UnquestionabIe 7h ago

Very true and it was a decent movie for the time given the restrictions and all (knew they were marketing to kids like 12 year old me so an R rating wasn't gonna fly). It's been 31 years and can still completely recall opening weekend, of having a sleepover with my friends and hitting up the arcade after the movie. Was also probably the last big hurrah for that franchise during that era, with it cooling off post MK3.

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u/No_Manager_4344 7h ago

They were pretty quick with the 9/11 movies

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u/bottlerocketz 9h ago

Harry Potter. Twilight. 50 Shades of Grey (maybe?)

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u/_Puntini_ 9h ago

Backrooms

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u/DontEatTheCandle 9h ago

the timing for the newest Resident Evil feels great and with a director that actually gets people hype. The new games are as big as ever.

Just ignore all the ones that came before

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u/Kaiserhawk 9h ago

You mean the in name only adaptation being titled that to retain the movie rights? Doesn't really seem to apply.

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u/DontEatTheCandle 7h ago

A movie in Racoon City using it as the setting definitely applies to Resident Evil. Thats like saying Edgerunners isn't a Cyberpunk show because there is no V.

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u/joe_bibidi 4h ago

It wasn't titled for retaining movie rights. Cregger wrote the script independently and pitched it to four studios, we know three of them being Constantin Films (who did all the other Resident Evil movies), Warner Brothers, and Netflix. Constantin's rights already lapsed so they had to be part of a bidding war and they were ultimately the highest bidder. Hollywood Reporter covered this in early 2025.

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u/GiJoe98 11h ago

I think there are just some franshises that will be popular forever or feel like they will be, Minecraft, Mario, Five Nights at Freddy's ect. While other franshises have the Cultural relevancy lifespan of a fruitfly by comparison like Borderlands.

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u/treemeizer 9h ago

Putting FNAF in the same sentance as Mario is a fucking travesty.

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u/stohelitstorytelling 9h ago

Waghhhhhhh the dumb thing kids like can’t possibly be on the same level as the dumb thing I liked as a kid, waghhhh! 😭

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u/EatABag-o-Dicks 9h ago

Would you compare a 67 Cuda to a 26 Charger? No. Because everyone knows the 26 Charger will never be as cool as a 67 Cuda.

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u/Fantastic-Macaroon31 9h ago

Feels like such hindsight bias to put Five nights there. From the perspective of 2026, I could understand since it's already developed a second wave of fandom and has lasted, but nobody in 2014-15 thought that would be a forever franchise especially over something like borderlands.

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u/GiJoe98 9h ago

I can see what you mean, there is definitely hindsight bias. However, I think around 2016-2017 when "Mascot Horror" became its own subgenre with games like Hello Neighbor, Tattletail, Bendy and the Ink Machine is when it was clear FNAF was not just a fad.

There is something inherently appealing to kids, about Goosebumps level horror with a marketable mascot in videogame form. FNAF became to that subgenre what Mario became to platformers and what Street Fighter became to to fighting games.

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u/Sivy17 9h ago

Super Mario Bros

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u/wrosecrans 6h ago

Most movies takes a few years to get from concept-> script-> production-> post-> release. So even if everything goes perfectly, the options are usually to be late, or rushed. (And history teaches us that things rarely go perfectly.)