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Borderlands' theatrical run grinds to a halt with just $31 million worldwide, which is barely enough to cover the marketing costs
(www.pcgamer.com)
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.