News culture “The worst time to announce it”: this big video game license made its return during the Gamescom evening but the timing really doesn’t work in its favor
Published on 08/23/2024 at 12:05
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On Tuesday night, gamescom 2024 opened with the very first trailer for Borderlands 4. But there’s one catch: the Borderlands movie, which is a dismal failure.
A film already hated
Announced quite a while ago now, the film adaptation of Borderlands didn’t really go as planned. Postponement, lack of communication, departure of screenwriter Craig Mazin (a real loss, the man being behind the scripts of the series The Last of Us and Chernobyl) who won’t even be credited: the result really, really didn’t convince. And it’s not the direction of Eli Roth (who nevertheless signed Hostel a while ago) nor the big casting with Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis or Kevin Hart that will have saved the film.
So to speak, The feature film peaks at 27% from the press and 1.6/10 from spectators on Metacritic. On Rotten Tomatoes, its average is 10%. Borderlands is a movie that is already hated and, clearly, a very bad way to praise the merits of video games, which are nevertheless very good and particularly popular. In short, a real uppercut for the Gearbox brand, especially since the box office score is so disastrous that the film would arrive on VOD as early as August 30th when it has only been in theaters for two weeks.
Bad Timing for Borderlands 4
While no one is going to see the Borderlands movie, everyone is still talking about it for its poor performances and questionable critical quality: This is clearly one of the biggest flops in cinema at the moment… and therefore one of the biggest in the history of game adaptations into films.
The problem is that Gearbox took advantage of Tuesday night’s Opening Night Live (the opening ceremony of gamescom 2024) to kick things off with… the first trailer for Borderlands 4. Yet highly anticipated for years, its grand reveal unfortunately coincides with the bad buzz of the filmin which the saga is fully swimming at the moment.
On X, some people don’t hesitate to openly mock it. “It was the worst possible time to announce Borderlands 4”declares an Internet user on the social network through a post liked… by more than 52,000 people. “The movie is a monumental flop and is 100% hated,” added another.
On the other hand, another Internet user expresses a different opinion, which can also be considered legitimate: “I’m pretty sure that’s why they announced Borderlands 4. The movie flopped and the lead director of the game had already confirmed the game was in development a day or two after the movie came out.”
I’m pretty sure that’s why they announced Borderlands 4. The movie was bombing and the lead director of the game announced it a day or 2 into the movies release 😅
— Tilly Wilzy (@JohnKno05953795) August 21, 2024
So do you think that the Borderlands 4 trailer was released to cover up the film’s failure, or is it just unfortunate timing and the feature film is tarnishing the video game’s visibility?
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