The tone surrounding Lionsgate's quarterly earnings report on Thursday was a somber one, and the studio's CEO didn't mince words when talking about some of its recent missteps.
Specifically, Lionsgate's Jon Feltheimer addressed "the poor box office performance of Borderlands," the critically reviled adaptation of the beloved looter-shooter games. Releasing this past August after a long development and production period, it quickly became an inarguable flop, ending its box office run with a dismal $31 million worldwide.
"On Borderlands, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong," Feltheimer admitted on the call. "It sat on the shelf for too long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usually strict financial models."
He added that several of their other releases in the quarter, "though cushioned by financial models that worked as intended, didn't live up to either our standards or our projections." Feltheimer is likely referencing the studio's recent remake of The Crow, which topped out at just $50 million worldwide.
Feltheimer told investors that the box office disappointments "reflected an environment with less margin for error than ever before," although he did express more hope for the future. Specifically, he brought up films like next year's John Wick spinoff Ballerina, as well as a new Hunger Games film coming in 2026.
The CEO's comments are only the latest recent reflection on the now fairly infamous Borderlands film. On the games side, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was less doom-and-gloom, telling IGN earlier this week, "Obviously that movie was disappointing. That said, it actually sold more catalog. So, I don't think it hurt at all, if anything I think it may have helped a little bit."
"Reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usually strict financial models."
Lionsgate reported a loss of $163.3 million in its quarterly earnings, with revenue at $948.6 million, down from the $1.01 billion from the same period a year ago. In the investor document, Feltheimer acknowledged that the earnings were "disappointing" and pointed to "a transitional, disrupted and difficult year for our industry."
For more on Borderlands, you can read our 3/10 review of the film, which we called "a catastrophic disappointment that plays like hacked-to-pieces studio slop, betraying everything fans adore about Gearbox Software’s franchise in derivative, regrettable fashion."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.