Right? Like I see folks in this thread and elsewhere echoing some of the typical things you hear when Hollywood botches an adaptation. Things like “it would be better if it was faithful to the source material” and other sentiments like that.
However, in this case, the one aspect of the games that is easily translateable to film (the writing) seems to have aged the absolute worst. Self-referential Internet humor was a bold, unique aesthetic in 2009, but it’s been largely played out the 15 years since the og game released, or at least Borderlands’ take on that style of humor has gotten stale. Maybe the writing was better outside of 2 and Tiny Tina’s (the entries I played the most), but I sort of doubt it.
I would not want to be tasked with adapting Borderlands. Stick close to the source material, get flamed for writing something juvenile. Diverge from the source material, get accused of not capturing the spirit of the franchise. It’s an impossible situation.
Same with Warcraft, Eragon, Valerian, the new Lara Croft. Sometimes I wonder if engaging with the source material hurts screenwriters or why they avoid it so much.
Just looked it up, and wow you’re right. Only made $47 million in the US? Seemed to be unusually overseas-heavy.
From Wikipedia:
Variety reported that the film was generating only moderate interest among U.S. moviegoers, which could possibly hurt its box office performance stateside, with poor reviews and competition from the aforementioned films and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (released the week prior) also affecting its performance.
I hope they know it’s not because we didn’t want a borderlands movie. It could have been good, but they didn’t choose that path.
Oh, if you can be sure of one thing it’s that execs will draw the completely wrong conclusions from this.
I have a really hard time imagining a good Borderlands movie. It would basically need to be a different franchise like Mad Max.
Right? Like I see folks in this thread and elsewhere echoing some of the typical things you hear when Hollywood botches an adaptation. Things like “it would be better if it was faithful to the source material” and other sentiments like that.
However, in this case, the one aspect of the games that is easily translateable to film (the writing) seems to have aged the absolute worst. Self-referential Internet humor was a bold, unique aesthetic in 2009, but it’s been largely played out the 15 years since the og game released, or at least Borderlands’ take on that style of humor has gotten stale. Maybe the writing was better outside of 2 and Tiny Tina’s (the entries I played the most), but I sort of doubt it.
I would not want to be tasked with adapting Borderlands. Stick close to the source material, get flamed for writing something juvenile. Diverge from the source material, get accused of not capturing the spirit of the franchise. It’s an impossible situation.
Same with Warcraft, Eragon, Valerian, the new Lara Croft. Sometimes I wonder if engaging with the source material hurts screenwriters or why they avoid it so much.
The Warcraft movie was actually really good, not sure why it did poorly in the States. Everywhere else in the world loved it.
I actually am in the rest of the world, but I found it only okay. There were good scenes and epic set-pieces but I felt the story was a bit lacking.
Just looked it up, and wow you’re right. Only made $47 million in the US? Seemed to be unusually overseas-heavy.
From Wikipedia: