After many years in various circles of development hell, the Borderlands movie is finally out. It’s not doing well. On Rotten Tomatoes, it’s currently tangled in the tendrils of a nine-percent score, and its global box office take over the weekend was a mere $16 million – tens of millions less than its budget. I have no desire to see this apparent whimper of a thing in theaters, nor should you. However, I will absolutely devour details about how it got made.
Nothing about the movie makes sense, after all. How did it attract such a star-studded cast? Why are all the main characters played by actors substantially older than they’re supposed to be? Why cut the cartoony gore the Borderlands series is known for, especially with the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine running circles around the rest of this year’s summer movie slate? Is Cate Blanchett OK?
Answering precisely none of those questions – though definitely providing an illuminating point A to explain how we reached the movie’s point Z – is director Eli Roth’s explanation of how he pitched Borderlands to studio execs, which I discovered while going down a rabbit hole last night and which I am now obligated to share with you, to ease the weight of my own burden. It involves literal dogshit. From an interview Roth did with SFX Magazine:
Whenever I take [my dog] for a walk and she has to go to the bathroom, she won’t let me look at her. I have to look away because she gets really shy. But one day I filmed her. She had that shy look on her face and I was like, 'That’s Claptrap.'
My first question [to Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford] was, 'You can’t kill Claptrap, but you can shoot him hundreds of times?' He goes, 'Correct. Because there’s a scene where Claptrap gets shot up after being a decoy.' I said, ‘So, what happens to the bullets?’ Randy goes, 'I don’t know.’ I go, ‘Could he shit out the bullets, like we’re in a Mel Brooks movie?’ He goes, ‘Yes, he could.’ And I felt we needed to see that.
… And that was my pitch to Lionsgate. They were laughing so hard.
This tale fits a little too well with Borderlands’ sometimes-puerile sense of humor, so perhaps it’s just marketing spin. But given where things ended up, I’m choosing to believe it.
Speaking of where things ended up, Pitchford is – as PC Gamer recently put it – posting through it. Among other things, he recently compared the plainly-bad video game movie to The Beatles, which is certainly a choice.
