The Borderlands film is out, and in case you somehow missed the news, it really sucks. Despite the concerns of Joshua Wolens, it also looks well on its way to becoming a bonafide box office bomb, earning just $8.8 million over its opening weekend in the US ($16.5 million globally), which is not great for a film that cost around $150 million to make.
It's hard to take anything good from that outcome, but Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford has found an upside.
"So what you're saying is: You like what my friends and I do with our Borderlands videogames even more than you like what some of the biggest and best cast and crew of film makers on the planet have done," Pitchford tweeted over the weekend. "I'm super flattered! We're working extra hard four you on what's next."
(I assume that "four" is not a misspelling but rather a bit of wordplay teasing the all-but-confirmed Borderlands 4.)
He repeated the sentiment in a reply-tweet a little later: "I'm actually pretty fucking flattered that people are essentially saying that my team and I are doing a better job building characters and telling stories and making entertainment than this un-fucking-believable cast and crew of some of the biggest and best film makers on the planet. I am super happy to live in that world."
And once more, with feeling:
That's definitely one way to look at it, and while it's not a perspective I would've considered, I have to admit there's some validity to it, if you're willing to squint and tilt your head a bit. Film and games are very different forms of media, and what works for one isn't necessarily going to translate well to the other. The plethora of bad game-based movies is ample evidence of that: A paper-thin excuse to mindlessly blow shit up can work very well for a videogame (see: Borderlands), but it's probably not going to hold up for a couple hours on the big screen (see: Borderlands).
Now, does Pitchford's statement hold water as a defense of the Borderlands movie? Absolutely not. Director Eli Roth said he was inspired to make the film by watching his dog take a dump (nope, not making that up) and I think the results aptly reflect the truth of that tale. It's just a straight-up shitty movie, and there are probably lots of things that people like better: Watching a dog drop a healthy three-coiler on the neighbor's lawn, for instance.
Pitchford rejected suggestions that an R rating, which is more typical of Roth's work, rather than the PG-13 the film ultimately got, would've made any difference.
"I love some gore in the games—I actively work on that!" he tweeted. "But I cannot figure out what mind needs that in order to parse a story as 'good' as if it’s not possible to be 'good' unless there’s a dick or an organ coming out of a body from violence or a bunch of 'fucks' uttered. It’s kind of an absurd argument to me."
At the same time, he seemed to acknowledge in another tweet that the movie was not quite as good as it could have been, because scenes that would've provided proper insight into characterization and motivations ended up on the cutting room floor. "They were great scenes, but I think in post with editors, producers and directors they felt the pace needed to stay quick," Pitchford wrote in response to a user who said the film's characters lacked the depth of those in the games.
"I hope some of the deleted scenes can come out at some point. I think, over all, the decisions were correct given what they had to work with. But it’s interesting to note that there was intention in the script and with what was shot to do what your instincts suggested would’ve been nice to have. Film making is crazy."
So, does that mean we've maybe got a Pitchford Cut to look forward to? Probably not. Echoing comments made by Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick last week, Pitchford said any financial losses on the film would be incurred by the movie studio, not Gearbox: "So I’m not really affected by that, except that if the studio loses money it may not want to make another movie."
Dare to dream and all that, but given the inevitability of second-weekend ticket sales dropoff, I'd guess the odds of Borderlands 2 are not great. Probably for the best.
