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.
$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!
I am certainly interested! thanks!
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.
Hollywood budgets are insane these days.
I watched Godzilla -1. That movie was fucking boss, and apparently its budget was only $15 million. That’s less than they spent removing the CGI buttholes from Cats.
Forgive my ignorance, but did they make CGI buttholes, then remove them before it premiered?
#releasethebuttholecut
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/04/cats-butthole-cut-vfx-editor
“We went to call our supervisor, and we’re like, ‘There’s a f–king a–hole in there! There’s buttholes!’”
There was a rumor to that effect, yes. But I think it was mostly a meme 😂
Curious as well 👀
Crazy that they spent that much on marketing and I still had no idea that movie was coming until I read articles about how badly it bombed. Did they blow the marketing budget on hookers and blow and call it good?? What the hell happened here?!
Uncharted was good too. Street Fighter is campy, but fun.
Yes. Although I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t called Uncharted.
You probably wouldn’t have heard or watched it. So many movies get made with lukewarm everything and nobody watches. Being uncharted got people to pay attention unfortunately
Tom Holland is a pretty big draw. I think he might have carried the marketing. But you’re probably right. The Uncharted name automatically gets everyone who enjoyed the video game. I never played the game, so I didn’t have any expectations, but I knew about the movie because my wife played the game, and the title caught her attention.
Tom Holland was good, but Marky Mark was a big “meh”.
And the end action set piece was too over the top bonkers for my taste
Marky Mark is always kind of meh in everything except for The Italian Job, and The Departed. I haven’t heard anyone call him Marky Mark in years! Haha. You must be my age.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Last of Us series. I do hope it ends where it is now, but it was some very good TV writing and acting.
Because the show writers are the same that wrote the game, last of us has a very strong advantage. They can’t deviate from the plot and key elements because they are too invested in it. But they can change what they feel like is weaker, or wouldn’t work as well in a show format. And its really noticable if you played both the game and the show. They’ve discussed how they already planned it to be a two season series, but they also mentioned if they have enough inspiration and they can figure out a way to make a third season that stays within the spirit of the story line, and they honestly enjoy it then they will.
With the first season being as good as it was, I have complete and utter faith in them.
I haven’t played the games, so I was able to watch the series for what it was. It’s also the reason I refuse to watch the Halo series. Thanks for your input, I was unaware the game writers were so involved.
Slightly off-topic: might be alone in this, but I actually really enjoyed Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It’s nice, self-contained, has some fun action, some cool scenes, and it turned me on to Jake Gyllenhaal and I’ve liked his work ever since. It’s Generic and schlocky but it’s better than the usual videogame movie garbo.
It fits nicely into that B-movie slot IMO.
It’s a not awful swashbuckler and few of those are made these days.
And weird trivia: the Alanis Morrisette theme song “I Remain” is not available on streaming legally. All of the other OST songs are there but that one is always missing.
Would Valve allow an aperture science/black mesa film?
I’ve wanted this so badly for years
That could be so good
And I guarantee if Valve allowed it, they’d be involved enough to make sure it didn’t suck
Why would you guarantee that?
I never realized any of those were movies.
Still waiting for a Duke Nukem movie
There was a Borderlands movie?
No, and let’s keep it that way!
The FNAF movie is actually not that bad. It surely isn’t masterpiece, but its good movie and also understandable for someone who barely knows anything about fnaf.
I still think The Banana Splits is a better movie, though.
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
stares at Henry cavill
Aggressively or affectionately?
Yes
Fallout is good tho, and Sonic as well.
The thing that baffles me about Wing Commander is that Mark Hamill was right there and already had an established character in the game’s canon. But even with a different story and cast, I don’t understand how anyone could have screwed up a bog-standard space opera that badly.
Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat deserve their respective paydays. They’re both stupid and fun. That’s what the source material is after all. But Mortal Kombat might do well with a little love: just throw a few million at Corridor Digital and update the CGI effects and re-release it.
I mean it’s Chris Roberts. He is behind 750 milion dollar 12 year space demo alpha that perpetually can’t take off and his biggest released game was only released because of external intervention and removing him as a lead
Oh warcraft was bad? I actually enjoyed that one, was hoping for a sequel.
I’m glad that it seems to be higher up on this list in terms of money made. Probably my favorite one of these movies, next to Mortal Kombat, although I haven’t seen Uncharted yet.
Yeah, I enjoyed it too. Felt bad for Duncan Jones when it seemed to get shit on from all directions.
That said, I was never much of a WoW player, so didn’t know any of the lore going in. My wife is though, and she enjoyed it too.
I don’t think the movie was that bad. Sure was predictable, but it was fun.
