Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick responded to the abysmal critics reviews for the upcoming live-action adaptation of Borderlands by telling moviegoers to just “give the film a chance” because he thinks the “look and feel is really terrific.”
The film has abysmal critic reviews. On Metacritic, it has a 27 Metascore from 29 critics.
READ: Embracer Group Sells ‘Borderlands’ Developer Gearbox Entertainment To Take-Two Interactive, But Keeps Sweet Baby Inc. Influenced ‘Hyper Light Breaker’
The highest score on Metacritic is from Tatiana Hullender at ScreenRant, who gave the film a 70. She wrote, “The overall experience is still a fun one, and I for one would welcome another big screen trip to Pandora.”
The next highest rated score is from Taylor Gates at Collider, who gave the film a 50. She wrote, “Borderlands is a fun ride, but a bloated cast and breakneck pacing don’t allow it to reach its full potential.”
Susana Polo at Polygon also gave the film a 50. She said, “Borderlands is the one kind of movie that’s the hardest to get excited about: the kind that lands in the middle space between a project with its own strong identity, and a compromised adaptation trying to play to the masses. It’s tough to live in the borderlands.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Juan Barquin at Little White Lies gave the film a 20. He wrote, “There is no joy to be found in the way that Roth parades out his actors in bad cosplay of characters from the series and strips them of any humanity.”
Bilge Ebiri gave the film a 20 at Vulture. He wrote, “This movie feels like it’s been shredded to bits, stripped clean of personality and character and coherence, presumably in an effort to get it short enough to sneak in some additional screening times.”
Johnny Oleksinski gave the film a 0 at New York Post. He said, “Unfortunately, for the time being, the star of Tár and Blue Jasmine is stuck as the lead of the worst movie of the year — a grueling, 102-minute endurance test that’s as lifeless as the video game it’s based on.”
Zelnick reacted to these and other poor reviews telling IGN, “Let’s give the film a chance. A lot of people worked really hard on it. The underlying intellectual property is phenomenal, the cast is amazing, I think the look and feel is really terrific. So let’s see what audiences have to say.”
He also shared that the film’s box office fate would not affect the franchise, “But to answer your question, no, the performance of the film wouldn’t have a financial impact on us or on the franchise one way or another.”
As for audience reactions, those are pretty bad too. On Rotten Tomatoes, the Verified Audience Score currently sits at 51% with an average rating of 3.2 out of 5. The All Audience score sits at 32% with an average rating of 2.2 out of 5.
READ: ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Developer Claims “Negative Review Campaigns” Can Lead To Significant “Harm” Including Loss Of Players And Revenues
On IMDb, the film currently has a 4.4 out of 10 from over 2,300 reviews. The unweighted mean sits at 4.2 out of 10. Nearly 30% of all reviews are 1 out of 10.
Shawn Robbins at Box Office Theory predicts the film will only gross between $8 million and $13 million in its opening weekend. However, he notes that traditional industry tracking predicts the film will gross $15 million.
The film’s production budget is reportedly $120 million according to Matt Belloni at Puck. That means the film needs to gross at least $300 million to break even. Given it’s only tracking for $15 million at the most, the film is likely already a financial disaster for Lionsgate.
What do you make of Zelnick’s comments?
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