LogInCould he have saved it?
Lionsgate Films
People will forever remember the Borderlands movie as that one dark spot among successful adaptations like The Last of Us, Super Mario Bros., and Fallout. It still has only 10% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.7 on IMDb.
But who knows, maybe Randy Pitchford, the CEO of Gearbox, the creator of the game franchise, could have made it better, but he was not as involved as you might expect.
In an interview with Insider Gaming, he shared that he had more input in the upcoming Now You See Me: Now You Don't, a heist film about a team of illusionists, than in the Borderlands adaptation.
"My involvement in that movie was more profound and deeper and had more effect on both the storytelling and on the result than the effect that I had on Borderlands, which is crazy!"
Crazy indeed. Unfortunately, we will likely never see if it's his lack of involvement that made the Borderlands movie so bad: he prefers to leave filmmaking to those who do it for a living, "I think that would be a mistake," he said about his theoretical leadership in this field.
"I did a James Bond game back in the day with Electronic Arts and we’re two weeks away from shopping, and the James Bond people said, you know, ‘We don’t think James Bond should be so violent. How about we just take all the guns out of the game?’
"I don’t want to be that guy. Whoever the experts are in the medium, do the best you can. You definitely know better than me. It’s hard enough as it is."
As for what the Borderlands film turned out to be, Pitchford actually liked it, but he pointed out that he "can't look at it like anybody else could."
Maybe it's for the best that Pitchford didn't lead the film: he is known for his questionable choice of words and difficulties in handling criticism. Just several months ago, he claimed that "if you're a real fan, you'll find a way" to pay $80 for a video game (including the upcoming $70 Borderlands 4, of course) and had to retract this statement.
Speaking of Borderlands 4, he believes the game is so good that he'd ask for $200 for it but also nothing at all so that "everyone would play it."
We'll never know what the Borderlands movie could be with Pitchford as the head, but perhaps it's not something we should lament.
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