The 2024 Borderlands movie reportedly had a $115 million budget, $30 million worth of marketing and distribution costs, and yet it only managed to fill up its piggy bank with $33 million from theaters worldwide. That's not very good. But, hush, stranger, don't cry – Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford says it would have been worse if he made it.
"It would have been way worse if I directed it," specifies Pitchford in a recent conversation about the Borderlands movie with TheGamer at Gamescom. It hadn't previously crossed my mind to wonder what the adaptation – which critic Neil Smith says in our GamesRadar+ Borderlands review is only worth "a slow handclap of derision" – would be like if a guy named Randy directed it instead of horror force Eli Roth.
In defense of Roth, who makes splatter films like Hostel and, more recently, Thanksgiving, he did use his expertise to horrify audiences by putting respected actress Cate Blanchett in an ugly orange wig.
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"I'm not a filmmaker," explains Pitchford, who I'm not aware of anyone accusing to be a filmmaker. "Eli Roth is an awesome filmmaker. I promise you, if I directed that movie, it'd be a disaster."
Pitchford goes on to use beloved band The Beatles as an analogy to the Borderlands franchise, which he's done before, seemingly with the belief that The Beatles aren't very good.
Nonetheless, "I love the Beatles," Randy confesses to TheGamer, but some of the band's music is simply "unlistenable."
"Should we say, 'You know what? You made an unlistenable song [...], therefore, make no more music." No! "That's not the attitude, you know, keep making music. I'm glad you tried something. Yeah, go for it. Please make more." So I guess let's look forward to a possible Borderlands film sequel featuring Paul McCartney.
"We tend to commit to the bit": Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford talks Borderlands 4, the evolution of looter-shooters, and $80 game discourse.
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