So that’s bad, yeah, but just how bad is it? With help from Google and The Numbers’ movie comparison feature, I can tell you this: It’s really bad.
I present to you…
An Incomplete List of Shitty Videogame Movies That Made More Money Than Borderlands
(in no particular order)
- Warcraft ($439 million)
- Max Payne ($88 million) Doom ($59 million)
- Street Fighter ($99 million)
- Assassin’s Creed ($241 million)
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ($336 million)
- Hitman ($99 million)
- Mortal Kombat (but Mortal Kombat is actually good) ($122 million)
- Need for Speed ($194 million)
- Five Nights at Freddy’s ($297 million)
- Uncharted ($401 million)
One big-budget, big(ish)-cast Hollywood film Borderlands managed to beat, which I bring up only because I paid good money to see it in theaters and I’m still sore about the whole thing, is Wing Commander, an utterly execrable celluloid waste of time and effort that bumbled to $11.5 million globally. Frankly I’m surprised it did that well.
Mortal Kombat isn’t a good movie. Nostalgia just tells you it is
Here’s an idea: Maybe stop making films no one asked for?
Even fans of the franchise didn’t really want this. How do you translate a looter shooter into a watchable 2 hour film?
I really enjoy playing Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, 15 minutes at a time on my Steam Deck. I’m not sure I need to see some forced deep cinematic character development extrapolated from it. There’s not that much to it.
GOOD! Now let games be games and learn to write an original story.
If all the game to movie adaptations weren’t studio led soulless cash grabs and some young filmmaker who loved a game’s story/world and passionately wanted to share it in their preferred medium I’d actually be interested to see it and it may actually be good
This is the kind of thing that ruins careers and maybe even production companies. Of course, Eli Roth will never be given a big budget to direct again and in the cast of the film, more than one will drop significantly in their next works.
I had no idea that Roth directed this movie. Like who thought that getting a cheesy splatter film director was a great decision? Honestly they got what they deserved with this mess.
in the cast of the film, more than one will drop significantly in their next works.
Kevin Hart. There’s a feeling already thst we are getting too much Jack Black on our screens but Kevin Hart was a lead and his part just fell flat. JLC is a legend at this point and Cate Blanchett is getting there, they can both coast through a stinker or two with all the accumulated good will. But Hart…
$38,912,465
That’s how much the 1993 Mario Brothers movie grossed worldwide. Really pause and think about that.
Let that sink in.
The mario brothers movie made $7,000,000 more than this, in 90s money. One of the greatest disappointments in movie history, which has a cult following for its level of fail, outperformed Borderlands.
That is the orbital nuke of fails.
As a part of the 1993 SMB movie’s cult following, I wouldn’t say it’s the level of fail that has contributed as much as a combination of nostalgia, and just how damn unapologetically strange it is. Someone honestly went and pitched a grimy, dieselpunk take on Super Mario Brothers, with Daisy as the princess rather than Peach, and humanoid/reptilian koopas, Toad as a punk busker, a velociraptor Yoshi, and Dennis Hopper looking absolutely insane as Bowser. And somehow, that movie got made and didn’t end up being the subject of “the insane reinvention of Super Mario Bros. that could have been” documentaries, and fan-film homages.
I’m aware that Hoskins and Leguizamo both have said that had a terrible time making the movie because of how disorganized it was, but I don’t care, the finished product is amazing.
If you’re interested, The Flop House (long running bad movie podcast with three hosts and sometimes a guest; 2/3 hosts are former Daily Show writers [they are three cishet white guys, but not stupid or bigoted]) did an episode with Parker Bennett, one of the screenwriters of the '93 SMB movie. He’s got some pretty great anecdotes about making it!
The way I see it, SMB93 is just mental enough that it slipped into cult movie territory. It’s obviously not a cash grab rammed full of fan service, so there’s an authenticity to it that makes it endure.
Is it a great movie? Fucking right it is.
Is it a Super Mario Bros. movie? Weeelllll…
But I come it from the perspective of someone who was 12 when it came out, so didn’t really give a shit about it being faithful to whatever story the games had. It was just a stupid, fun movie for me.
