After its opening weekend of earning just $8.8 million against a $120 million budget, Borderlands is already on track to be 2024’s biggest flop. Critically, it is not doing any better, with fans of the games and casual movie goers alike ripping into it for being a poorly crafted hodge podge of better films. It makes Borderlands come off as the latest example of a problem with video game movies in general, which is that many in Hollywood still don’t seem to respect the genre.

Nothing Like The Game

Months before Borderlands even debuted, fans were quick to notice from the trailers that the creators of the movie did not seem to have much interest in capturing the spirit of the games.

While the games are hyper violent and filled with profanity and dirty jokes, the movie got a PG-13 rating. Actors were cast who bore not even the slightest resemblance to their characters, like Kevin Hart playing Roland, the tall muscular soldier known for his quiet, serious attitude.

The Cast Didn’t Play The Game

It came off like nobody involved in the movie was actually a fan of the games, which appears to be what actually happened. In cast interviews, Cate Blanchett (Lilith) who is one of the film’s leads, and Gina Gershon who played Mad Moxxi, both admit they have never played the games.

While an actor does not need to love the source material to play a role, you would think the Borderlands cast would at least want to play enough of the games to study how their characters act.

A Disappointing Pattern

This is a problem that has happened frequently in video game movies beyond Borderlands. The most recent Mortal Kombat was criticized for underutilizing the characters everyone knew and loved in favor of Cole Young, who was created just for the movie.

This has happened all the way back to 1993’s Super Mario Bros. movie, which made zero effort to make characters like Bowser or the goombas even faintly resemble how they looked in the games.

Trojan Horse Media

Some fans have taken to calling cases like Borderlands “Trojan Horse media” where it is portrayed as a movie built on bringing these games to the big screen, but studios really just take the recognizable brand and graft their own story and ideas onto it.

Many people feel tricked by such movies, feeling it exploits the fandom by getting them to spend money on a movie that actually has nothing to do with the game they love.

There’s No Reason It Had To Fail

What frustrates people is that the supposed “video game adaptation curse” has long been broken. The Fallout TV series came out to glowing reviews, The Last of Us TV series is one of the most anticipated shows returning next year, and 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of the biggest movies of the year. Borderlands could have succeeded if it had not totally alienated the game’s fanbase.

A Teachable Moment

Some people in Hollywood still seem to regard video games as a niche medium that TV and movie audiences can’t relate to. Rather than respecting how big of an audience gamers are, studios still think they can nonchalantly strip away everything that made a game great and try to “fix” it for a movie. While there is no gratification in a movie doing poorly, hopefully Borderlands’ failure is a reminder to Hollywood to respect the source material.