Borderlands grosses $16 million globally, leaving it roughly $60 million shy of breaking even—and that's before the theatres take their cut

Movies & TVBorderlandsBorderlands grosses $16 million globally, leaving it roughly $60 million shy of breaking even—and that’s before the theatres take their cutWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Lionsgate)

Borderlands movie promo image

The Borderlands movie continues to circle the drain in a way that,as I mentioned yesterday, is so dramatic that it just makes me kinda sad—its US box office debut coughed up a ‘not good enough for the balance sheets’ number of $8.8 million which,according to Variety, is a whole lot of scratch shy of the $115 million it took to make and the $30 million it cost to market and distribute.

As perGamesIndustry.biz, the global box office numbers are out and, oof, they aren’t looking that much better. The grand gross (as in gross income, I’m not just being extra mean) of the Borderlands movie? $16.5 million.

Except it’s even worse than that. Box office numbers are taken before a movie theatre gets its money, a cut that can be anywhere from 20%-50% depending on a number of factors including the theatre and the studio’s pull over it (large productions will often see the studio raking in more, smaller theatres will often get worse deals, and so on).

The exact number landing in the studio’s pocket is hard to call, but you can reasonably say that Lionsgate is (in the most optimistic scenario) seeing about two thirds of it.

In terms of how that’ll impact the actual Borderlands franchise? Luckily for Gearbox and Take-Two Interactive, not at all. In an interview withIGN, Take-Two’s CEO—who wants us togive the movie a chance—emphasised that “the performance of the film wouldn’t have a financial impact on us or on the franchise one way or another.”

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, who has beenseverely posting through it, doubly confirms thison Twitter: “Whatever was spent on the movie came from the movie studio, Lionsgate,” Pitchford writes, before launching into the following spiel:

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“We’re working on our games and are pretty happy that there’s a whole lot of people who now know about Borderlands that didn’t know about it before. I’m stoked you think we do better with our games than what some of the best actors and filmmakers on the planet did with the movie—that’s super flattering! You did see the movie, right?”

In fairness to Pitchford, it’s likely many of those dunking on it didn’t see the movie, statistically speaking. PC Gamer’s news writerJoshua Wolens did, though, and he didn’t like it—though it seems his “disconcerting impression it could end up a (relative) box office success” has not materialised.

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